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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE SCANDINAVIAN-AMERICAN 



The Scandinavian 
American 



BY 

ALFRED O. FONKALSRUD. PH. D. 



WITH THE COLLABORATION 
OF 

BEATRICE STEVENSON, M. A. 



MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
1915 






COPYRIGHTED 1915 

by 

ALFRED O. FONKALSRUD. PH. D. 




d 



K. C. HOLTER PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
MINNEAPOLIS. MlimESfeTX*. 

iUL 28 13 i5 
a,A4(!6905 



"^::::> 



PREFACE. 

This book is the result of a thesis presented 
by one of the authors for a Doctor's degree at 
New York University. The more purely so- 
ciological chapters have been omitted and in- 
stead such matters as properly belong to the 
subject have been added. The book is not in- 
tended to be a complete and comprehensive dis- 
cussion of the subject, but rather its object is 
to point out the extensive activities of the Scan- 
dinavians in America, and in this way to serve 
as a stimulus towards arousing an interest in 
the Scandinavian influence, as well as to en- 
courage further study of Scandinavian achieve- 
ment in America. The work does not contain 
much with which the first generation Scandina- 
vian is not already familiar, as it is primarily 
intended for the second and third generations 
and for Americans who may desire a concise 
outline of the Scandinavian content in America. 

As one of the writers is a Norwegian-Ameri- 
can, the Norwegians may, at times, have re- 
ceived a more complete treatment than the other 
branches of the Scandinavian family. There 
has been, however, an earnest desire on the part 



of the authors to treat the three nations fairly, 
accurately and impartially, as otherwise the 
value of the book as a source of information 
would be greatly impaired. 

The authors wish to acknowledge their hither- 
to unexpressed gratitude to many friends who 
have acted as sponsors for this work, in giving 
information and supplying criticism. Very spe- 
cially is it the desire on the part of the authors 
to thank Dr. Rudolph Binder and Prof. Jere- 
miah Jenks of New York University, also Mr. 
C. H. A. Bjerregaard, Mr. G. S. Strandvold and 
Mr. W. W. Irwin for their kind contribution 
to the success of the work. Finally, cordial 
acknowledgment is made to the authors of two 
works which have been liberally used in the 
preparation of this volume, namely, "A His- 
tory of Norwegian Immigration to the United 
States to 1848" by Prof. G. T. Flom, and 'The 
Swedish Settlements on the Delaware" by Dr. 
Amandus Johnson. 

New York City, 1914. 

A. O. F. 

B. L. S. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 
PREFACE 5 

CHAPTER I. Introduction 9 



CHAPTER II. Historic Significance of the Scan- 
dinavians 19 

CHAPTER III. History of Scandinavian Immi- 
gration 34 

CHAPTER IV. Scandinavians in America Con- 
sidered as a Potential or Latent Force 53 

CHAPTER V. The Economic Influence of Scan- 
dinavians in America 81 

CHAPTER VI. Political, Literary and Social 

Influence of Scandinavians in America 100 

CHAPTER VII. The Significance of the Scan- 
dinavian Church 124 

CHAPTER VIII. Scandinavian-American Artistic 

Achievements 140 

CHAPTER IX. Probable Influence on Making 
of the Future ''American Race" through 
Immigrants in General and through Scandi- 
navians in Particular 153 



i 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. 

A social fabric is woven of beliefs, and 
aspirations, customs and habits, it is in short 
the inevitable reflection of the physical, mental, 
moral and spiritual life of masses of men. Its 
roots are in man's racial and historic past, its 
manifestation is in the society of the present. 
But when we remember that this very society 
consists of elements so unlike in tastes, facul- 
ties, sex, health and ability of every kind, that 
some men are strong while others are weak, 
we face an indispensible social complexity. 
That out of this complexity some sort of har- 
mony results is due to the accomplished work 
of the social forces. These great social forces 
named interests by some, Ratsenhofer for ex- 
ample, as the race interest, impulses which 
center in the reproductive functions, the physio- 
logical interest, as hunger, thirst etc. ; or called 
desires by Ross, as appetitive, hedonic, egotic 
etc. ; or virtually called forces by Ward, as 
ontogenetic, phylogenetic and sociogenetic ; 
these are the agents which energize all forms of 



10 

human society. Scandinavians and Americans 
marked by racial, national and individual traits 
are passive units in the play of the great social 
forces, but at the same time they themselves are 
likewise energizing agents towards producing a 
social fabric. Finally, the Scandinavians thus 
the products of the working out of the great 
social forces, are, when considered racially, 
historically and socially, a factor in the socio- 
logical life of America. 

Anthropologically Scandinavia although sup- 
posed to be the home of the Teutonic race in 
its purity is not at all pure in type. The racial 
type, varying least in Sweden, greatly by 
districts in Norway, and in Denmark, more sub- 
ject to a changing population because of its 
contiguous position to the continent, varying 
still more greatly, reaches no exact example. 
Even Norway, remote and therefore in a mea- 
sure free from the inroads of a changing popu- 
lation, has been known to have from prehistoric 
times two strongly marked types, a short, dark, 
brachycephalic type in addition to the tall, fair- 
haired, dolichocephalic race. Although this lat- 
ter fair-haired race is conceeded to be the 
Scandinavian type par excellence, the fact that 
great variations are found, that most of the 
modern investigations report a mediumly broad- 
headed type and that roughly three, perhaps 
more, classifications of type are held to make 
up Denmark's population, shows to what extent 



11 

the racial composition of Scandinavia is com- 
plicated. On the whole, Scandinavian types ap- 
proach a greater degree of definiteness in the 
tall, fair-haired, long-headed example, the popu- 
larly supposed Scandinavian figure, than can 
ever be said of the American anthropological 
type. This indeed is too much a matter of pure 
speculation to obtain much credence. Coloniza- 
tion and immigration, in setting up the Ameri- 
can type, produced pre-eminently the English 
type, but colonization was also very strongly 
French and Spanish, it was Swedish on the 
Delaware, Dutch in New York and German 
later in Pennsylvania. To these strains have 
been added a great stream of immigration which 
has embraced every European type, Alpine, 
Teutonic and Mediterranean; that, however, 
about seventy-five pet. of the inhabitants of the 
United States to-day are of English Teutonic 
and Celtic stocks is accreditably believed (Gid- 
dings, F. H. The American People. The In- 
ternational Quaterly. vol. VII). Racially Eng- 
land, although at a prehistoric period having 
received Mediterranean and Alpine types, is 
predominantly Teutonic. The inference is that 
the true American type is Teutonic. Scandi- 
navian type is Teutonic, thus we have a mixing 
of peoples, not the direct mingling of races. 

The mixing of peoples or nations is more 
than anything else an adjustment of differing 
standards, social, moral, political and religious. 



12 

By these standards people are guided and ac- 
cording to these they expect to be guided. A 
new country has its code and dictum, its im- 
peratives and restraints, which consider the 
state as a whole and offer no special legislation 
in the interests of foreign constituents. To be- 
come a nation, various elements must mix; out 
of chaos must come order. The mixing is ac- 
complished in two ways, biologically and socio- 
logically. In the biological process, inter-mar- 
riages among the people, the cell is the center 
of interest; it is made the habitat of certain in- 
herent potentialities which operate in the indi- 
vidual in an unique manner. What the indi- 
vidual thus obtains becomes his by heritage, it 
is the fortune or misfortune that parents must 
inevitably give their children. It may be the 
iniquities of the parents visited upon the chil- 
dren, or it may be a healthy body and strong 
mind. In this process it is plain that some races 
offer more good than others, hence a mixture 
with such peoples would be beneficial. 

Climate, geographical situation, food sup- 
ply and condition of life qualify mixture. When 
we are considering two peoples such as the 
Scandinavians and the Americans and inquiring 
concerning climatic similarity or dissimilarity, 
we find that Denmark, Norway and Sweden 
lying between the 54th and 70th parallel are 
subject to a more rigorous climate than America 
lying between the 50th and 25th. Stockholm 



13 

and Christiania, at the 60th parallel, are com- 
pared to the state of Minnesota, at the 45th, 
with a corresponding dissimilarity of parallel. 
The significance of these facts of dissimilarity- 
is detracted from however by the indications 
that the sections are somewhat similar in con- 
ditions of moisture and rainfall as well as the 
quality of the air. Further, Denmark*s open 
meadows and flat surfaces offer no great dis- 
parity to America's large farm lands, and 
Sweden's sea boundaries correspond to the 
Scandinavian-American's Great Lake states. 
As to food supply, these very farm lands of 
America determine the superior excellence and 
plenty of the food supply in this country. 

While it is generally accepted that the mixing 
of races brings a stronger and more efficient 
race, a consideration of the American nation 
both supports and refutes such a theory. The 
hetrogeneity of the American nation is, first of 
all, open to question. The people of America 
nearly all belong to the Teutonic race, and the 
similarity of the members of this race is well 
known. We do not need to go back in history 
more than a dozen centuries to find present 
nations, now belonging to the Teutonic race, as 
one people. The fact that some have lived in 
Germany, others in England or some other 
country whose population is Teutonic, has not 
produced the difference in race that is generally 
accorded to these respective peoples. In Ameri- 



14 

ca representatives of the various races are now 
rapidly uniting and forming the new American 
nation. For an admixture we receive a large 
percentage from the people of southern Europe, 
and a smaller number from nearly every 
country in the world. The significance of this 
admixture, however, is mostly political and 
social, as a mixture by marriage between the 
Teutonic peoples and others is quite limited. 
Their racial traits are so different that when 
they are brought into contact the result is aver- 
sion rather than attraction. 

Still, the fact that we do receive many of 
our people from nations whose racial traits 
differ, and the further fact that evil as well as 
beneficial consequences result from mixture in 
America, leads us to lay down both sides of 
the generally accepted theory that the mixing 
of races brings a stronger and more efficient 
race. Quoting Dr. Blanchard's findings of the 
prevalence of diseases among children born of 
foreign parents we find two significant condi- 
tions. "The children of recent immigrants 
from warm countries are particularly liable to 
develop rickets, while the children of im- 
migrants from cold countries are especially apt 
to become victims of tuberculosis." Climate 
and change in habits of living are held re- 
sponsible. The majority of immigrants flock to 
our large cities and settle in the poorer quar- 
ters. Dr. Peter Roberts, in a book entitled, 



15 

"The New Immigration," presents a map of the 
United States with a line drawn from a 
southern point of New Jersey to a southern 
point in Illinois and thence to the north- 
west corner of Minnesota. Doctor Roberts 
says that 80 percent of the new immigrants re- 
main north and east of these lines. In 1911 
there were in Chicago, 84,000 new immigrants, 
one-fifth of whom came from a hot country. 
Among these people rickets is very common in 
the first few years of American life, the Italians, 
Greeks and Syrians furnishing 80 percent of 
such cases. The people from northern Europe 
generally seek work in clothing shops and other 
factories, and do piece-work at home. They 
live huddled close together. They are essen- 
tially an indoor people. Their children do not 
have rickets, but they furnish a large share of 
the cases of tubercular joint disease, resulting 
in deformities. Sixty-six percent of all cases 
of curvature of the spine are found among 
Jewish girls. Further, when we take into con- 
sideration that the immigrant mother has nearly 
twice as many children as the American born 
mother, 4.7 percent against 2.9 percent, the im- 
portance of this question is appreciated, es- 
pecially when it is understood that bad deformi- 
ties, curvature of the spine and disabling con- 
ditions due to either rickets or tuberculosis in 
the young of these new immigrants, means a 



16 

large number of helpless paupers for future 
generations to care for. 

It is to be noticed that the races suffering 
mostly from the diseases mentioned are those 
which constitute a great bulk of our immigrants 
in recent years and which formed only a small 
percentage of our earlier population. That the 
new composition of our immigrant population 
may eventually show marked improvement both 
physically and otherwise is to be infered from a 
few remarks made by Dr. Woods Hutchinson 
on the American physical type. In an investiga- 
tion which included "almost every country in 
Europe and every degree of Americanization 
from the German *forty-niner' to the descend- 
ants of the three brothers who came over in the 
Mayflower" it was found that "the native-born 
Americans of all sorts were an inch to an inch 
and one-half longer than the foreign-born sol- 
diers; and that these recruits who had been 
longest in America and at the same time least 
mixed with any recent importation or streams 
of immigration, Kentuckians and West Virgin- 
ians, were nearly two inches taller than the 
soldiers of any European nationality. . . . We 
turned to the next, to the chest measurement, 
... to find . . . our lungs had actually expanded 
to a circumference of an inch and one-half 
greater than that of the average European-born 
recruits. . . . We turned to the scales to find 
that our national lankness had consisted so 



17 

largely of bone or some other heavy substance 
that our average was between five and ten 
pounds heavier than that of any foreign-born 
nationality." From such statements it appears 
that America has a beneficial influence upon a 
people. That the children of the immigrants 
are stronger than their parents and show a 
better average than their kin in Europe is 
doubted by Professor Ripley. Quoting from 
"Race Improvement," p. 134, "The crucial time 
among our new comers from Europe has always 
been this second generation. The old customary 
ties and usages have abruptly sundered, and 
new associations, restraints and responsibilities 
have not yet been formed." 

This is the crux of the whole matter, the 
hardihood or the sickliness, the high or low 
grade productivity, the morality or the im- 
morality of the second generation. It instances 
the precarious results of the crossing of racial 
strains, the successful or unsuccessful acclimati- 
zation of a people to the habitat. And yet when 
mingling occurs between peoples of the same 
great racial stock, when change of habitat re- 
sults in the substitution of one climate not to- 
tally unlike the first, when there is beneficial 
transition from one mode of life to another, and 
furthermore when the mixing is peaceful, tak- 
ing the migratory and not the martial form, 
advantageous results are very likely to ensue. 
But that the Scandinavian-American crossing 



18 

displays the favorable rather than the unfavor- 
able side of mixing is not to be lightly settled 
theoretically. As a matter of fact the second 
generation Scandinavian-American is said to be 
characterized by a loss of buoyancy and elas- 
ticity of gait; the hair becomes dry, digestive 
disturbances and constipation become common. 
When, however, it is remembered that roughly 
speaking one out of every four in the Scandi- 
navian countries suffers from tuberculosis, we 
may perhaps see in these other symptoms more 
the evil manifestations of transition than per- 
manent disablements. Furthermore, leaving the 
particular for the general, we would say that 
the matter must be decided at long range, and 
Scandinavians themselves regarded as a vital 
social force in America must be broadly judged 
in the light of their reaction to and their action 
upon America's great social forces, her political, 
economic and social institutions. Racially and 
historically, economically, politically, socially, 
from the point of view of religion, scholarship 
and the arts, Scandinavia impinges upon Ameri- 
can life, and so are the consequences of mixing 
to be judged. 



CHAPTER II. 

Historic Significance of the Scandinavians. 

Tall, fair, dolichocephalic peoples have figur- 
atively been said to possess certain psychic 
traits, to be impatient of control, dominant but 
loyal, swayed by deep ideals and to be origina- 
tors of great ideas and workers for far ends. 
This is the psychic type of early Scandinavians. 
War training and out of door games developed 
a spirit of resistance and virility in keeping with 
their tall bodies playing like gods games of skill 
on fields illumined by flickering northern lights. 
'' "The outward look of the Norse and the 
Dane was much the same. Broad-shouldered, 
deep-chested, long-limbed, yet with slender 
waist, small hands and feet, their figures told 
of strength ; and so necessary was strength con- 
sidered that puny infants were exposed and left 
to die, the healthy children alone being pre- 
served. Their complexion, their hair and eyes, 
were fair — and the fair alone could pass for 
beautiful or well-born. A dark complexion was 
considered the mark of an alien race, and dis- 
honorable. Thus Baldr, the noblest of the gods, 

19 



20 

was fair, and the outward appearance of the 
slave was thus contrasted with that of the free- 
man. 'Black and ugly they are. Their fore- 
father, Thrall, had a broad face, bent back, long 
heels, blistered hands, stiff, slow joints, and 
clumsy figure. His wife, Thy, is bandy-legged, 
flat-nosed, and her arms are brown with toiling 
in the sun. Their children are like them.' 

The ordinary dress of both sexes was nearly 
the same. A shirt, loose drawers, long hose, 
high shoes with thongs twisted up at the ankle. 
A short kirtle girt at the waist served for coat 
or gown ; an armless cloak, with a low-crowned, 
broad-brimmed hat completed the dress of man. 
The woman, instead of the hat, wore a wimple 
of linen, and over that a high twisted cap, some- 
times bent at the top into the shape of a horn ; 
but otherwise dressed much as the man. The 
under-clothing of both sexes was of linen ; their 
outer garments of a coarse, woolen homespun 
— grey, or black, or blue, or red, the most 
prized of all. 

To this the chiefs added, in time of war, a 
helm and shirt of mail ; and all were armed 
with a long shield, protecting the whole body, 
white, in time of peace ; red, in time of war, 
covered with leather with iron rim and boss ; 
spears of ashen shaft and iron point, axes, and 
above all, the sword, the darling of the North- 
men. 

Their ships were long, half-decked galleys, 



21 

propelled by oars and sail. The waist, where 
the rowers sat, was low, that the oars might 
have free play." 

Physically dominant as they were, they did 
not scorn to render service, to pledge everlasting 
loyalty to a comrade through the mystic blood 
bond of friendship, and to promise and main- 
tain marital fidelity and steadfast conjugal de- 
votion. Yoked with this trait of staunch loyalty, 
the capacity for deep religious reverence stands 
out as one of the most prominent Scandinavian 
characteristics. The hold which religion, pagan 
at first and later Christian, had over the early 
Scandinavians reflects their sombreness of per- 
sonality and devotion to ideals. Will power, 
massive and unyielding, was the teaching of 
their moral code. Under the worship of Odin 
and Baal, a Viking was fired to deeds of endur- 
ance, was urged to the pitch of actual conquest 
or certain death, all the while sustained by the 
pictured glories of the godland, that region 
where heroes proceeded ; till there fell, with 
Ragnarock, the doom of the gods, this structure 
of bliss built by Scandinavian imagination. 
With the passing of pagan times the transcend- 
ent beauty of northern belief faded, but the 
spirit that gave the faiths their beauty survived 
in the songs of the skalds and the glorious ad- 
ventures of the Vikings on the seas. Scandi- 
navian psychic traits expressed in early poetry 
and romance emphasize love of the supernatural 



22 

and strong sex consciousness. Through ice- 
locked fjords and over mountain tops glided the 
feet of the "little people," cognizance of whose 
wishes meant the well being or misfortune of 
individuals. Just as to-day the fishers fear the 
appearance of the *'dragg" that creature v/ho 
rides in a half-boat and who foretells instant 
death, so in those far-away times all people 
feared and loved the "little people." Of them 
the skalds would sing a^ they came visiting, 
entering halls or huts heartily welcomed. Such 
teachers of religion, science and literature 
turned banquets into halls of merriment v/ith 
their gay songs, their long (accounts of war 
deeds or love episodes. 

The character of these hardy Northmen was 
well suited to their future destiny. Johnson, in 
his "History of Normans in Europe" p. 18 says : 
"The daily struggle for existence in an in- 
hospitable climate had taught them fearlessness 
and ready wit in danger. From the absence of 
all aristocracy or other privileged classes they 
had acquired a spirit of independence, a haughty 
and unbending character, which prepared them 
for their future conquests. Set face to face 
with the mysteries of nature and of their self- 
taught religion, they had gained an heroic fanci- 
fulness, a thoughtful sternness which lit up the 
darker tints. These features were the natural 
result of the free and independent life of their 
forefathers. To these we must add a cold- 



23 

blooded ferocity, contracted in the long civil 
disturbances which had torn their country since 
the end of the eighth century. All these are 
the qualities common in early times of success- 
ful conquerors; but as we follow the history of 
their settlements, another more important fea- 
ture appears; namely, their extraordinary versa- 
tility and power of adapting themselves to 
varied forms and states of society. The North- 
men never seem to have been original, to have 
invented anything; rather they readily assumed 
the language, religion, ideas of their adopted 
country, and soon became absorbed in the so- 
ciety around them. This will be found to be 
invariably the case, except with regard to Ice- 
land, where the previous occupation was too in- 
significant to affect the new settlers. In Russia, 
they became Russians; in France, Frenchmen; 
in Italy, Italians; in England, twice over 
Englishmen ; first in the case of the Danes ; and 
secondly, in that of the later Normans. Every- 
where they became fused in the surrounding 
nationality. Their individuality is lost, and 
their presence is traced only in the nomencla- 
ture of the country, that fossil remnant of de- 
nationalized races, as it has been called. Not 
so their influence. They fell on stirring times, 
and in every case they took the lead, and deeply 
affected the nations with which they came in 
contact. Europe at that date was in a fluid 
state, and the Northmen seem to have acted as 



24 

a crystalizing power; to have formed a nucleus 
round which poHtical society might grow. In 
Iceland they formed a free republic; in Russia 
they first organized a kingdom; in England 
they, by their pressure first consolidated the 
kingdom of Wessex, then conquered it under 
Canute and William I; in the West-Frankish 
country they finally put an end to the long 
struggle for supremacy, sounded the death-knell 
of the Karolings of Laon, and aided to form 
modern France. Nor is this all; they borrow 
everything and make it their own, and their 
presence is chiefly felt in increased activity and 
more rapid development of institutions, litera- 
ture and art. Thus, while they invent nothing, 
they perfect, they organize everything, and 
everywhere appear to be the master-spirits of 
their age." 

Under their lead bloomed the flower of 
romance in the north. But in northern romance 
itself there was such a dearth of sentiment, of 
gilded speeches and amorous situations; all was 
terribly forcible, earnest and turbulent with ele- 
mental passion. It was of high-handed con- 
quest the Northman sang and of such actions 
was his romance made. 

In action lay the greatness of the early 
Scandinavians ; world conquest was his con- 
trolling idea and far worked-for end, and 
Vandrelyst expresses that yearning which took 
the Viking conquest so far afield. Bred in a 



25 

land of long winter, hemmed in by mountains, 
narrow fjords and the gloom of northern skies, 
all the exuberance of life fed by splendid phy- 
sical condition leaped into being when the 
Northman sprang into his long-beaked ship, 
donned his high, winged cap, called to his men, 
freemen all and soiis of freemen, to go forth 
to conquer, pillage and harass half the then 
known world. Prows carved as serpents, 
golden eagles, ravens, or dragons swept through 
icy waters as the marauders advancing south 
to England and France, north to Greenland and 
west to America, brought terror to any land 
which had once felt the fangs of these wolves 
of the high seas. English conquests, French 
pillages and artic colonizing bore witness to the 
spirit of those intrepid voyagers before the end 
of the adventurous era brought a quiescence 
which was in turn to be broken by the hot 
protest of the Reformation, the fever of coloniz- 
ing epochs of the seventeenth century and the 
splendid New World immigrating spirit of the 
nineteenth century. 

The psychic Scandinavian type thus emerges 
as a distinct whole, compounded of strongly 
marked traits, of virility, pride in feats of en- 
durance and exhibitions of physical skill, of 
deep seated loyalty to others, devoted steadfast- 
ness in conjugal relationships ; also possessing 
fervent religious tendencies, love of the super- 
natural, affection for poetry, strong sex con- 



26 

sciousness and an all powerful love of adven- 
ture and glorious independence. Instances of 
the working out of these traits can be found in 
the panorama of Scandinavian history. One 
trait, sturdy independence, is featured in the at- 
tempted introduction of Christianity, in the 
establishment of jury trials, and in the Refor- 
mation fight for religious freedom. In 1000, 
when Gorm the Old ruled Denmark, Christian 
missionaries were stoutly resisted till, explain- 
ing that they did not come to brutally stamp out 
the old religion but peacefully sought to sub- 
stitute a new faith of gentleness and kindness 
in place of the old, they were allowed to circu- 
late among the Danes ; arbitrariness bred resist- 
ance, and intolerance open rebellion. The 
justice of trial by jury was common, and 
practiced in Scandinavia before its introduction 
into England by Henry II. Likewise resist- 
ance to papal autocracy again widened the 
strong democratic strain which has so often 
been exhibited by Scandinavians in history. 

Such is the Scandinavian type which plays 
a long role from those far distant days when 
Greek Pytheas referred to Scandinavian men as 
"Hyperboreans," dwellers beyond the north- 
wind, to the present day when as dwellers in 
America they present themselves as contribu- 
tors to the social forces at work in American 
life. To scan such length of years, Scandi- 
navian history may be divided into two periods, 



27 

the earlier 2500 B. C. to 1300 A. D. the later 
1300 A. D. to the present day. 

With the above introduction it is possible to 
commence Scandinavian history as far back as 
facts, or semi-established facts, go. Keeping to 
the truth, it is well known that a branch of the 
Teutonic or Nordic race came early to Scandi- 
navia because of the excellence of the herring 
fishing, that they were attracted to such an ex- 
tent that they stayed to hunt and raise cattle, 
and that later they took part in trade of amber 
and furs with the Mediterranean world. 

All this happened before 400 B. C. Simul- 
taneously there arose stories of the deeds of the 
heroes. Odin led the Asas out of Asia into 
Scandinavia, and at his death gave the land to 
his three sons, Denmark to Skjold, Sweden to 
Yngave, and Norway to Soeming. Harold of 
Denmark fought the mythical battle of Bravalla 
and killed Sigurd of Sweden, whose son Ragnar 
met death in a pit of serpents. 

That history really began about the time of 
Alfred the Great is corraborrated by the history 
of the three Scandinavian countries. In each a 
definite land system, featured by the family 
holding, freehold and hundred seems to have 
been in existence. From the peasant land- 
holders there eventually sprang up rulers over 
certain portions or holdings, and from these 
rulers came a concentration of power in one 
king who picked his diet, the assize or thing, 



28 

from them. Denmark forming a nation about 
the sound, Sweden around Lake Malaren, and 
Norway last to attain a national unity, because 
of her remoteness, each became a kingdom ruled 
by her own house. Thus developing industrially 
and socially each country existed as a separate 
state until the formation of the Kalmar Union 
in 1397, — that brief coalition which is the 
single justification of the three peoples ever be- 
ing politically considered a Scandinavian unit. 
St. Birgitta in the church and the Black Death, 
that scourge of the Middle Ages, mark the 
closing of the first period. 

A brief review points out the important 
facts in the subsequent period. From 1397 to 
1448 lasted the union of the three countries, 
then Sweden retired. Following that date oc- 
curred the era of Gustavus Adolphus in Swe- 
den, the periods of the brilliant ministries of 
the Bernstorffs in Denmark, and the corre- 
sponding cultivation of the fine arts. Wars 
were waged against Napoleon in 1808, and Fin- 
land was lost to Sweden in 1809. In 1814 Nor- 
way and Denmark separated, and Norway and 
Sweden formed the alliance which lasted to 
1905. What is of more picturesque significance 
to the world drama, however, are the points of 
contact which Scandmavia made upon the other 
countries during both the earlier and later 
periods. Into the earlier fall those highly dra- 
matic Viking voyages, exploratory trips, war 



29 

marauding and trial colonization tours of which 
so much has been written. To the later period 
falls the American immigration and its sub- 
sequent contribution to the history of American 
greatness. 

Three great cycles encompass the old Viking 
raids. Barbaric invasions of Rome fill an early 
cycle occurring about 100 B. C. Then the Cim- 
bri and Longobardi, strange peoples appearing 
from beyond the mountains, challenged three 
successive armies of Marius before they could 
be checked. Cruel, forcible and pitiless, this 
Viking movement was characterized by none of 
the constructive features of the later move- 
ments, merely brute force pouring into an effete 
civilization. When in 806, though, a band of 
Swedish warriors entered what is now Russia 
a constructive note was struck, which was fol- 
lowed up by the positive results of the Byzan- 
tium approaches, when the Vikings offered aid 
to the king of the city. In the neighborhood 
of their northern home Vikings likewise adven- 
tured, for in 861 Iceland was discovered and 
colonized by Ingolf, and Greenland by Erik 
the Red, who peopled the island 800 years be- 
fore Hans Egede went there preaching Chris- 
tianity. America was reached; Lief the For- 
tunate, son of Erik, in voyaging to Greenland, 
met shipwrecked mariners whom he carried to 
their destination, thereby reaching lands which 
he called Hellund (Newfoundland), and Mark- 



30 

land (Nova Scotia). Later Thorwald, Lief's 
brother, came to Massachusetts, and the inter- 
course which was kept up until the fourteenth 
century is said to have been the basis of Colum- 
bus curiosity about further discoveries in the 
west. Whether it can be implicitly believed that 
to the Scandinavians is due the discovery of 
America, or not, it is well known that no 
country possessed at the time such inordinate 
love of the sea and such wanderers to brave 
the dangers of unknown lands as the Viking 
Norsemen. 

But through Europe ran the greatest Norse 
raids. The tale of their conquests in Belgium, 
France and Germany is only equalled by their 
exhibited prowess in the British Isles. Not only 
is the distinction of the breaking of Charle- 
magne's Empire given creditably to the haras- 
sing Viking, but the very growth of France 
itself as a national power dates from the rise 
of the city of Paris against the invader's army. 
Armed for the siege of Rouen, the Norse war- 
riors swept up the Seine, then, having won one 
stronghold, advanced to Paris, the seat of war- 
fare. Strong resistance broke the ranks of 
the attacking hordes ; Paris saved by Count 
Odo, sprang into life as a centre of the newly 
born French nation and the Empire of Charle- 
magne was crippled. Rollo, the Norse leader, 
stayed on in Normandy, his warriors were 
named Norman noblemen, and from this race 



31 

sprang that brilliant figure of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, William the Conqueror of 
England. 

All that we can feel certain of, all, at least, 
which it is, in any way important to remember, 
is the frequency and enormous area of the at- 
tacks, and this cannot be put in better words 
than those of Sir Francis Palgrave : "Take," he 
says, "the map, and cover with vermilion the 
provinces, districts, and shores which the North- 
men visited. As a record of each invasion, the 
coloring will have to be repeated more than 
ninety times successively, before you arrive at 
the conclusion of the dynasty of Charles the 
Great. Furthermore, mark by the usual sym- 
bol of war, two crossed swords, the localities 
where battles were fought by the pirates, where 
they were defeated or triumphant, or where they 
pillaged, burned or destroyed, and the valleys 
and the banks of the Elbe, Rhine and Moselle, 
Scheldt, Meuse, Somme and Seine, Loire, Ga- 
ronne and Adour, and all the coasts and coast- 
lands between estuary and estuary, all the coun- 
tries between river and streams will appear 
bristling as with chevaux de frise/' This will 
give some idea of the invasion as far as Gaul 
and Germany are concerned; but it should be 
repeated for England, Scotland, and the islands 
which surround their coasts, to give any ade- 
quate conception of the misery which was caused. 

Long had the plundering Norsemen harassed 



32 

the coasts of English country; bitterly during 
the ninth and tenth centuries did they advance 
to pillage, burn, devastate Anglo-Saxon vil- 
lages, to terrorize the kingdom and exact huge 
ransoms for unfulfilled promises. Such infu- 
sion of rampant paganism, high spirit, and in- 
vigorating character as the Danes brought to 
England was little felt in the days of devasta- 
tion, it is only from the long point of view of 
the centuries that beneficial results of such in- 
fusion can be seen. The staunch unyielding 
humor of the English people against encroach- 
ment upon their rights, displayed in the insti- 
tution of trial by jury, representation in govern- 
ment, and charter grants, has come in a great 
measure, it is believed, from that very infusion 
of Scandinavian blood. 

But with the close of the eleventh century the 
great era of the Viking pales. Still much high 
national vigor was poured into the ranks of the 
Christians, who under Tancred fought at An- 
tioch and Tiberius for the recovery of the Holy 
Sepulchre in the Crusading wars. In the same 
century Scandinavians advanced into Switzer- 
land, their powers still respected and feared. 
The great stream of adventurous wanderings 
had ceased, however, the boyhood days of the 
nation were over, and the fiery national spirit 
only flared up in the valiant part which Scan- 
dinavia took in adjusting the rival claims of 
the Protestants and the Catholics in the Re- 



33 

formation struggle, and in the Napoleonic bat- 
tles of the nineteenth century. 

Scandinavia had played her part, a gigant- 
ically strong part in the world drama. In the 
days of emigrations she peopled many parts of 
the earth, sent her best fighting blood to war in 
all quarters of the then known world, and be- 
sides, invigorated and relieved priest-ridden 
civilizations in the crumbling decades of the 
world's history of growth. Truly the Scandi- 
navian's figure, possessing great physical 
strength, dominating energy, loyalty to chieftain 
and brother, filled with the love of the seas, of 
the poetry of action and the rythm of conquest, 
and touched by the grandeur inherent in leaders 
in north-lying countries, by the imaginativeness 
of inquiring childlike minds, truly such a figure 
has carried itself with distinction in the adven- 
turous era of Europe. That indeed the history 
of the three Northern countries shows intense 
loyalty to democratic ideals of government, 
great religious tolerance, strong sense of Scan- 
dinavian consciousness, and tremendous and 
deep-seated energy, is undoubted. The old world 
contribution is loyalty and unsparing strength 
with all the poetic heritage of an adventurous 
era. The new world contribution unfolds in 
the history of immigration to America. 



CHAPTER III. 

History of Scandinavian Immigration. 

An analysis of the causes which brought 
about emigration from Scandinavia to America 
discloses several factors which at different 
times, induced Norwegians, Swedes and Danes 
to come to America. Trade impelled the col- 
onizing immigrants, for in the days of the pros- 
perous Dutch West Indian Company, rich re- 
mits were looked for in America, such as skins, 
Indian corn and tobacco, the trade articles which 
attracted the Swedes to the shores of the Del- 
aware River. But trade did not on the whole 
rank very long as a cause for emigration. Reli- 
gion can be said to be the first really dominant 
cause. The wish to worship according to their 
own ideas led the first Norwegian Quakers to 
New York State in 1825, while later, Grundt- 
vigian and Mormon ideas had some influence, 
though small, upon the emigrating Scandina- 
vians, but, since no very strong persecution of 
sects ever took place in the Scandinavian coun- 
tries, religion at no time constituted a prime 
cause. What early strength it had was soon 

34 



35 

lost in a greater impetus, the subtle attraction 
of letters homeward bound from countrymen 
who had already emigrated. Among all the 
other causes, military, commercial and financial 
which arose and subsequently passed away, the 
pressure of this attraction, the accounts of 
America contained in letters, held its insistent 
sway. Reluctant to engage in required military 
training, the young men of the country read 
letters, pamphlets and newspapers describing 
the glories of the new country, then embarked 
for America. 

But economic pressure proved the strongest 
factor influencing emigration. In Norway, for 
instance, the money lenders were contracting 
the currency, reducing the value of the dollar, 
thereby maintaining higher incomes and cheaper 
labor. The common people felt it. Lower 
class farmers were caught too in the reaction of 
the railroad building of 1865-1869. Extended 
railroad construction, much inflation of property 
values and constantly increasing loans met the 
natural check. Norway found herself too small 
a country, too restricted in resourses, to keep up 
the pace she had set, and the smaller farmer felt 
the reaction. So poverty and dissatisfaction 
with the office-holding class drove the Norwe- 
gians to America. A state bankruptcy and a 
war early in the nineteenth century, together 
with low wages throughout that period influ- 
enced the Danes to come, while, withal, the 



36 

spirit of adventure and a desire to better their 
condition, moved these North-Europeans to 
come to a land of brilliant futures. And it is 
true indeed, that America held out tempting 
prospects. Extension of railroads westward, 
the Homestead Act of 1862, besides numerous 
contracts between land and railroad companies 
were opening up the northwestern territory of 
the United States. Consequently, economic 
pressure in Europe and economic attraction in 
America jointly started and maintained the great 
mass of Scandinavian-American immigration. 
This is the great cause: trade and religion ap- 
peared, effected results and passed away; mili- 
tary obligations had some little influence, and 
while the power of letters and the press was 
felt throughout the immigration period, it was 
economic conditions which moved the great 
mass of the people westward. 

The earliest mention of Scandinavians on 
American shores is in 1609, when it is claimed 
that Hudson, possibly a Dane, sailed up the 
Mauritius Floden, or Hudson River. This 
opens the colonial period to which belongs an 
account of scattered Danes or other Scandina- 
vian traders and of certain definite Swedish set- 
tlements on the Delaware. Following the colo- 
nial period Scandinavian immigration history 
concerns itself with the settlements of Norwe- 
gians in New York State in 1825, with Norwe- 
gian, Swedish and Danish settlements in the 



37 

west and northwest in 1836-1870, and finally 
deals with the large movements of immigrants 
in the decades of 1870-1910. 

On account of the relatively close lying po- 
sition of Denmark and Holland, the assumption 
is made that Hendrick Hudson was perhaps of 
Danish blood. To the Danes it seems likely 
that, because many Danish sailors were often to 
be met in Dutch ports, American voyages might 
sometimes have been due to the Danish nation. 
So they claim that when Hedrick Hudson sailed 
in 1609 to American shores, discovered and 
named the Mauritius Floden, or Hudson River, 
as it was later called, such an occurence marks 
the first Scandinavian event in America. 
Whether or not it can so be called, it is certain 
that Danes were at any rate on the ship, and 
that, when Hudson met the Indians at the 
mouth of Menaten Island (now Manhattan) 
Danes were present. Surely in 1611 a Dane, 
Captain Henry Christiansen, sailed to New 
York. He came in a Dutch vessel from the 
West Indies, visited New York and took back 
skins and corn to Holland. When in 1613 he 
returned, a partner, Adrian Block, accompanied 
him. In sailing up the Hudson River, meeting 
and trading with Orson and Valentine, they 
persuaded these Indian chiefs to return to Hol- 
land with them. It is said that Christiansen and 
Block traveled about the country exhibiting 
their strange visitors. Such mutual friendship 



38 

between the Indians and their hosts did not, 
however, endure : the ''Fortune" and "Tiger", 
the two vessels commanded by Christiansen and 
Block, voyaged to and fro from America about 
ten times; Albany was reached and fortified as 
Fort Nassau, but Christiansen, who died there 
in 1614, is reported to have been treacherously 
murdered by the Indian chief, Orson. Block 
lost his boat "Tiger" outside of Battery Place, 
so was forced to remain in America; he built 
four log houses at about the present 39 Broad- 
way,- -this was the beginning of New Amster- 
dam. (Danske i Amerika, edited by C. Ras- 
mussen, p. 360.) This made a place of trade, 
New Netherland the post was called, and after 
this several traces of Scandinavian names have 
been found. 

Most suggestive of interest is the arriA^al in 
1639 of a certain captain of the East Indian 
Company by name of Jochiem Pieters Knyter. 
With him was a friend, Ursus Bronck of Copen- 
hagen, who received land along the Harlem 
River (Danske i Amerika, edited by C. Rasmus- 
sen, p. 364.) There this much respected man 
built a house, calling it "Emaus", to which came 
the governor, making treaties with the Indians 
when trouble broke out. The import and signif- 
icance of the man Bronck, Bronx, is not to be 
overlooked in the ensuing development of the 
metropolis of Manhattan, for, if the claims of 
the Danes for the Danish nationalism of the 



39 

man proves worthy of acceptance, the fact of 
his arrival and settlement picturesquely fills in 
the very early colonial period of Scandinavian- 
American history. 

Colonizing was first thought of in Sweden 
along with trade and from 1607 to 1663 many 
trading companies were organized in Sweden, 
but the one which prominently antedates New 
Sweden, in America, was a trading company 
organized in 1624 by William Usselinx, a Dutch- 
man. Being dissatisfied with his treatment by 
Holland in connection with the Dutch West 
Indian Company he came to Sweden to interest 
the king in a trading project which should bring 
wealth to the Swedish crown. Gustavus 
Adolphus, having just covered himself with 
glory in his European wars, ready to welcome 
any large schemes, was soon prevailed upon 
to give to William Usselinx a commission to 
establish a "General Trading Company for Asia, 
Africa, America and Magellanica." Usselinx 
drew up his prospectus and started to get sub- 
scriptions ; but the latter, although reinforced 
by crown support, did not quickly materialize. 

Still the idea started by Usselinx did, how- 
ever, mature, but later. Sweden at this time de- 
pended for her prosperity on trade in copper. 
The West Indian copper trade was flourishing. 
Two Dutchmen, Bloomaert, a trader, and Mi- 
nuit, sometime governor of New Netherland, 
proposed to Oxenstjerne, the Swedish minister, 



40 

to start a trading company in secret opposition 
to the West Indian Company, which would 
send trading expeditions to the Delaware and 
other parts of America under the Swedish flag. 

The first expedition headed by Minuit took 
place in 1638. The ''Kalmar Nyckel" arrived 
in Delaware Bay, sailed up the river as far as 
the Manquas Kill, and not finding any white 
men, entered into a contract of purchase with 
the Indians. During the existence of the colony 
1638-1655 good relations were always main- 
tained with the Indians. The government of 
the colony was a strongly centralized power. 
Courts were held. Religion was the state be- 
lief, the Swedish Lutheran, and ministers were 
sent over by the consistory at home. Log 
houses, farm buildings and a few ships were the 
only building ventures the colonists engaged in. 
Agriculture and cattle raising besides trade were 
the most important industries. 

Trade continued the raison d'etre of the col- 
ony. Copper, beaver and tobacco were the 
main articles. The English in New Haven, ob- 
serving the exceptional position of the Delaware 
communities came to investigate in 1641. They 
found the country sparsely settled, so lingered 
to do trading with the Indians and Swedes. 
Antagonism was felt by the Swedes toward 
the New Haven English traders in spite of the 
fact that the English in Virginia and Maryland 
were looked upon as friendly neighbors. 



41 

Throughout the period the English were con- 
sidered much more foes than the Dutch, al- 
though it was the Dutch who in 1654 besieged 
and captured the colony. With the fall of the 
fort ended New Sweden as a Swedish colony, 
the officers returned to Europe and most of the 
settlers swore oaths of allegiance to Holland. 
The reports of the officers when delivered at 
home brought about renewed interest in colonial 
Sweden and the recent negligence of the court 
and people was turned to enthusiasm to win 
back New Sweden. The formation of a new 
company called ''The American Company" and 
a few more expeditions were the only results, 
hovv^ever, for with the capture of New Amster- 
dam by the English in 1665 ended all hope of 
Sweden winning back her colony. 

In Norway in 1816 a Quaker society was 
formed at Stavanger by Larson, Tastad and 
Hille, three Norwegians, who as prisoners of 
Napoleon, on being taken to England, had ac- 
cepted the Quaker faith and returned to propa- 
gate it in their home country. To their efforts 
and those of Kleng Peerson and Knud Olson 
Eide may be given the credit of forming the first 
Norwegian settlements in America, for Peer- 
son and Eide, conceiving that America would be 
an acceptable place in which to practice Quaker- 
ism unmolested, came to New York in 1821 to 
investigate. On their return Lars Larson or- 
ganized a party to sail on the "Restaurationen" 



42 

to America in 1825. It was this party which 
heralded the beginnings of Norwegian immi- 
gration to the United States. In 1^25 the fifty- 
two Quakers who arrived were welcomed by 
their brothers of the faith in New York City, 
and provided with money with which to journey 
to Kendall, a portion of land in Orleans County, 
New York. There they took up the land in a 
body, paid for it in installments, enjoyed the 
privilege of worshipping according to their 
ideas and cheerfully endured the necessary hard- 
ships of pioneer living. 

By 1836 more Norwegians were ready to 
migrate to America, two Kohler brigs were fit- 
ted out, the "Norden" and "Den Norske Klip- 
pe". In these ships one hundred and fifty 
to two hundred more settlers came to this 
country, but these, instead of joining their 
friends at Kendall, persuaded some of the 
Kendall settlers, among them Kleng Peerson, 
the leader, to go westward and found a set- 
tlement at Fox River, La Salle County, Illinois. 
This Fox River settlement opens up a signif- 
icant period in Scandinavian-American history, 
for it inaugurated the era of west and north- 
west settlements. From 1836 down to the pres- 
ent day Scandinavians came to be associated 
solely with the northwest, and it is there that 
their history is followed. 

A glance at a map of the United States for 
the period 1800-1870 would show the states con- 



43 

taining Scandinavian settlements to be Illinois, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, 
and the Dakotas. This is northwest territory, 
a vast region whose history had begun in the 
days when Indian canoes swept down the big 
rivers and French explorers tried its forests 
Hardly can settlement be said to have begun in 
that period for the French, Champlain, Nicolet, 
Claude Allouez and La Salle were explorers, 
not colonizers. They tracked a pathless wilder- 
ness which was to remain French, and French- 
Indian till the English occupation in 1761. By 
1785-90 during the English occupation, more 
definite knowledge was gained of this region, 
boundaries were indicated by the Ohio, Missis- 
sippi and the Great Lakes. Detroit stood the 
keypoint of all this vast French-English region 
till the end of the War of 1812 saw the posses- 
sion become wholly American. 

Into this new region came the Scandinavians 
when in 1836 the Norwegians settled at Fox 
River. Relatives and friends soon followed and 
took up what they considered to be better land 
in La Salle and Boone counties in 1839. Rock, 
Racine, Dane and Walworth counties in Wis- 
consin were entered in 1838-40. A Swedish 
colony appeared at Adrian, in Michigan, while 
Washington, Goodhue and Carver counties 
started Swedish history in Minnesota. 1863 
saw the beginnings of Kansas history; Scandi- 
navians, attracted by the Homestead Act of 



44 

1862, and the Galesburg Colonization Company, 
filled the central part of the state in Saline and 
McPherson counties, while Sugar* Creek and 
New Sweden sprang into existence in Iowa. 
Railroads were extended into North Dakota in 
1872, Fargo became a terminus to be reached 
by immigrants, thereby settling Cass, Griggs, 
Walsh, Traill and Richland counties. Numerous 
as are the settlements, the facts attending their 
origin and development are much the same. 
Each one initiated by a leader, accepted pioneer 
conditions, broke ground, farmed, and in most 
cases prospered. Illinois, possessing Chicago, 
was the natural point of contact with the east. 
To Chicago came the trainloads of immigrants. 
Railroad development in Illinois in 1850-1870 
naturally scattered them through the state; a 
propitious climate, rich soil and good situation 
also kept many Scandinavians in this state. 
Religion characterized cultural aspects of the 
settlements. Mormonism made itself felt in 
1840, for at Nauvoo the Mormon colony at- 
tracted the attention and reproof of the state 
authorities. Michigan with her great forests 
and splendid virginal condition, called to the 
Scandinavian farmer; Detroit, the key -to the 
northwest region in early days, now opened up 
to the hardy immigrant a territory rich in re- 
sources. Wisconsin, easy of access by means 
of the Mississippi River, early became a goal 
to Scandinavian newcomers, for this state be- 



45 

came popular, especially through advertisement 
in foreign newspapers. From Chicago and the 
Illinois settlements the arrivals advanced, at 
first by boat or stage, to the larger regions of 
the northern states, Wisconsin and Minnesota, 
destined later to rank very highly as populous 
Scandinavian states. Meanwhile, across the 
river from Nauvoo, Illinois, there sprang up 
settlements at Sugar Creek and around Rock 
Island. Westward through this state of Iowa 
the trail of the Northmen also led to central 
Kansas, where railroad rates and land values 
were the attraction as in the contiguous terri- 
tory of the Dakotas. In fact, the Scandinavian, 
colonizing this district so thoroughly, became 
known as a considerable developing agent, rank- 
ing second (1860) in size of alien race to cul- 
tivate the great northwest. 

The attitude of the American government and 
the railroads had much to do with the Scandi- 
navian settling of the northwest. The Home- 
stead Act of 1862 emphasizes conditions which 
always attract pioneers, the expectation of find- 
ing cheap land under government protection, 
and the surety of experiencing society and pol- 
itics in a formative stage. The railroads in the 
two decades of 1860-1880, encouraged this ex- 
pectation, for the Union Pacific Railroad Com- 
pany and the Northern Pacific Railway made 
rates offering special terms to homestead seek- 
ers. The "First Swedish Agriculture Com- 



46 

pany" of 1860 offers an example of this kind, 
for in that year the Union Pacific Railway en- 
tered into agreement with the "First Swedish 
Agriculture Company" of McPherson County, 
Kansas, to reduce railroad rates and land pur- 
chases. The establishment of the "Galesburg 
Colonization Company" likewise depended for 
its success on a bargain with the Kansas Pacific 
Railroad Company, while the settlement of 
North Dakota is mainly attributed to the North- 
ern Pacific Railway Company. 

Religion is closely connected with the move- 
ment of Scandinavians for the period consid- 
ered. In America the Norwegians particularly 
observed close allegiance to the state Lutheran 
church. Just so soon as a settlement originated, 
religious cohesion to the national form of wor- 
ship was demonstrated. The Norwegians had 
a national church in 1844, when only 12,000 
Norwegians were in this country, while before 
this there were local congregations and min- 
isters. The growth of church buildings and en- 
largement of church organizations kept pace 
steadily with the increase in immigration. 
Among the Swedes, although in the main very 
loyal to state worship, greater diversity of sects 
was to be found. After 1850 many Swedish 
Methodist, Swedish Baptist and Mission Friend 
churches located in various settlements. The 
Danes favored numerous denominations. Bap- 
tist, Presbyterian, Adventist and Unitarian. Not 



47 

till after 1870 with 30,000 Danes in the United 
States, was there a purely Danish-American 
church with a minister. Of most interest in 
Danish-American church history is the intro- 
duction in 1869 of Grundtvigian ideas, propa- 
gated by a Grundtvigian Society in Denmark. 
This society advocated the practical side of 
Christianity and protested, as did its originator, 
the reformer and exhorter, Nicolai Grundtvig, 
against the rationalistic tendency in the state 
church. Mormonism likewise had a radical 
influence on Danes in America. Joseph Smith, 
born in 1827 in New York state, started a Mor- 
mon settlement in Missouri. Driven out of that 
state by the governor's orders, he purchased a 
tract of land in Nauvoo in Illinois in 1840, but 
was not able to remain there after 1846, for, 
because of the introduction of polygamy, the 
state required the removal of the colony in that 
year. Meanwhile before the definite removal 
to Utah an experiment was tried at White 
River, Walworth County, Wisconsin. After 
Smith's death and the assumption of leader- 
ship by Young, this wing of the party also 
removed to Utah. To the Mormon church 
there flocked many Danes, especially in the 
years 1850 — 1860, for Rasmus Sjzirensen in 
Denmark worked upon the excitable sympathies 
of the people to induce Mormon emigration. 
From 1861 to 1868 of the 9,362 Danish emi- 
grants, 2,500 were Danish Mormons. From the 



48 

Fox River settlement many Norwegians like- 
wise joined the Mormons, especially at Lamoni, 
a place near Nauvoo, where the Mormons did 
not practice polygamy, and with them later 
moved to Utah. 

After 1870 the movement of immigration was 
from the east to the west and northwest. The 
northwest section of the United States has al- 
ways maintained a position far ahead of other 
sections of the country. Besides this northwest 
movement, which is indicated here by statistics 
of foreign born Scandinavians, there has been 
an enlargement of the foreign element marked 
by the increase in the United States groups, 
which is indicated by statistics of the foreign 
born and the native born of foreign parentage. 
Thus, movement and relative increase of the 
Scandinavian element in the sectional groups of 
the United States are the dominant features in 
later immigration history. 

In 1880 the census numbered 440,262 Scan- 
dinavians born in Europe and resident in the 
United States, of these about 1.45 per cent or 
6,305 were found in the southern states, 10 per 
cent or 45,655 in the eastern, 11 per cent or 
50,739 in the western and 77 per cent or 336,511 
in the northwestern. This shows the position of 
the northwest group in which are included the 
states of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wiscon- 
sin, Iowa, the Dakotas and Nebraska. By 1890 
the Scandinavian immigration tide reached 10,- 



49 

995 in the southern group, 128,761 in the east- 
ern, 123,345 in the western and in the north- 
western 670,148. In the following decade 1900 
the figure rose to 15,273 for the southern, 188,- 
371 for the eastern, 143,442 for the western and 
715,121 for the northwestern. The year 1910 
showed 15,599 in the southern, 242,935 in the 
eastern, 232,152 in the western and 756,047 in 
the northwestern. The percentage of Scandi- 
navians in each group recorded by decades shows 
the movement of the tide of immigration : in 
1880, the southern group possessed 1.4 per cent, 
in 1900 the same, and in 1910 1.5 per cent, the 
eastern group 10.4 per cent in 1880, 17.7 per 
cent in 1900, and 19.4 per cent in 1910, the 
western group 11.6 per cent in 1880, 13.4 per 
cent in 1900, and 18.4 per cent in 1910, while 
the northwestern group contained 77 per cent in 
1880, 67.3 per cent in 1900, and 60.4 per cent in 
1910. This is significant in showing that while 
there is a steady maintenance of first position 
by the northwest group there is, later, a tend- 
ency on the part of incoming Scandinavians to 
remain in the east and also to go far west. 

Before considering further the movement of 
the incoming immigrants, a glance at the in- 
crease by decades of the groups discloses a sim- 
ilar conclusion, the maintenance of first position 
by the northwest group and the slight gain in 
percentage of foreign element in the east and 
west in 1890, 1900 and 1910. Of all the Scan- 



50 

dinavians in America in 1890, that is, foreign 
born and native born of foreign parentage, 73 
per cent or 1816,541 were in the northwest 
group, 1.2 per cent or 29,990 in the southern, 
12.7 per cent or 314,765 in the eastern and 12.7 
or 313,750 in the western. In 1900, 70 per cent 
or 2,266,107 were in the northwestern group, 13 
per cent or 425,039 in the western, 15 per cent Oi* 
496,388 in the eastern and 1.5 per cent or 48,708 
were in the southern. In 1910, 65.3 per cent 
were in the northwestern group, 17.2 per cent 
in the western, 15.7 per cent in the eastern and 
1.7 per cent in the southern. This discloses the 
phenomenon of a slight decrease in the north- 
west, 73 per cent to 70 per cent to 65 per cent, 
and an increase in the west, 12.7 per cent to 13 
per cent to 17 per cent, and in the east, 12.7 
per cent to 15 per cent, — a conclusion which 
was reached above when considering the newly 
arriving immigrants. 

From the percentages quoted it may easily 
be observed that the northwest group always 
greatly outdistanced the other groups and of 
this northwest group Minnesota is found to take 
the lead in rank of the Scandinavian states. In 
1890 Minnesota had 588,250 Scandinavians to 
Illinois 326,044, Wisconsin had 284,350 to 
Iowa's 210,106, the Dakotas' 183,800, Nebras- 
ka's 122,923 and Michigan's 101,068. In 1900 
Minnesota still led, the order being Minnesota 
with 753,514 Scandinavians, Illinois with 432,- 



51 

075, Wisconsin with 341,659, the Dakotas with 
248,590, Iowa with 244,507, Nebraska with 
128,054, and Michigan last with 117,708. In 
1900 Minnesota had 23 per cent of all the Scan- 
diavians in the United States or 43 per cent of 
the state population was Scandinavian : in 
1910, Minnesota possessed 9.6 per cent of all 
the Scandinavians in the United States, or 28 
per cent of the state population was Scandina- 
vian. In all periods for total Scandinavians 
Minnesota practically contained one-third, there- 
by establishing her position as head of the north- 
west group. 

But while the Scandinavian content is mainly 
to be found in the northwest group, there is no 
denying that there has been a distinct growth in 
the western groups of states, Missouri, Kansas, 
Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, 
Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Washington, 
Oregon and California. This movement west- 
wards was a scattering in the midst of a larger 
group. The increase for the group from 1890 
to 1900 was 35.3 per cent, from 1900 to 1910, 
61.8 per cent and the line of march ran west, 
northwest. The states which led in the begin- 
ning westward movement were Washington, 
California, Colorado, Montana, Oregon and 
Utah in the order mentioned, for from 1880 to 
1900 Washington led with 24,730, California 
followed with 18,927, Colorado with 10,931, 
Montana with 9,741, Oregon with 7,065 and 



52 

Utah with 5,530. By 1910 the state of Wash- 
ington to which the majority of the westward 
immigrants have gone, contained a total number 
of 123,890, an increase from 1900 of 50,897. 
The immigration Hne of direction on the whole 
was west, northwest. History for 1800 — 1870 
likewise emphasized a west, northwest direction. 
These two facts characterize the whole Scandi- 
navian movement in America. It was a north- 
west movement preeminently, a fact interesting 
in the psychology of races in that it expresses 
the unconscious impulse of a migrating race to 
seek similarity of latitutional position. Scandi- 
navia is a northwest country of Europe, there- 
fore when Scandinavian immigration to the 
United States takes place it seeks the northwest 
portion of the latter country. Thus Scandi- 
navian racial characteristics of industriousness, 
simplicity, obediance to law, integrity and 
chivalrousness have been convened into a cer- 
tain group of American states, what impress 
they make socially, politically and economically 
will subsequently be seen. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Scandinavians in America Considered as a 
Potential or Latent Force. 

We have considered the arrival and the dis- 
tribution of the Scandinavian immigrants. In 
this chapter it is our purpose to review what 
they do rather than to trace the influence of 
their acts. Hence the subject : Scandinavians 
in America as a potential or latent force. 
Enough has been said to show that wherever 
they have settled, their "foot-prints on the sands 
of time" are seen. Few countries in Europe 
fail to show their imprints. Can this race come 
to our country in such a large number and fail 
to be a factor in our national life? To suppose 
this is impossible and contrary to historical 
facts. Scandinavian influence is, and will be a 
force that can never be iliminated. American 
history has already written many illustrious 
deeds . upon its pages ; i. e. John Ericksen and 
his Monitor formed the turning point in the 
Civil War, and revolutionized the art of war- 
fare; the late John A. Johnson, Governor of 

53 



54 

Minnesota, was a true American and an ex- 
ponent of our highest ideals; the Honourable 
Knut Nelson has proved himself a conservative, 
yet progressive statesman of our country. 

The race which most readily and completely 
merges with the people of a new country both 
gives and receives a larger share of the charac- 
teristics peculiar to the two races than a race 
which merely merges partially and reluctantly. 
The importance of predominant traits of two 
such merging races must not be overlooked, as 
the more nearly these are alike, the more easily 
will they act reciprocally and lose less energy in 
futile opposition. History amply substantiates 
that Scandinavians readily amalgamate, and 
that the cultural differences of the Scandi- 
navians and Americans are not extremes is also 
well known, hence we have good reasons why 
the Scandinavians should persist in cultivating 
their peculiarly national characteristics. 

If all the races that have come to America 
should continue as minature countries from 
whence they emigrated — wars without end 
would result. The making of a new nation 
would be impossible. The improvement of the 
race would be greatly retarded — there would 
be no infusion of new blood and the devasting 
effect of wars would soon be manifest in the 
loss of the best men, and the destruction of 
property. 

England formerly, America now, show how 



55 

a new nation is made from many nationalities. 
The two countries mentioned amply substantiate 
the result, since they are the strongest nations 
the world has ever known. Hence in America 
a complete process of merging will improve our 
nation. The two sides of this question will be 
considered in this chapter. From the above it 
is evident that ultimate Americanization is de- 
sirable and necessary, both for the immigrant 
and the new nation ; united they will progress, 
divided they will fight. To what extent have 
the Scandinavians mixed with the American 
people? Two answers may be given. If we 
consider the early arrivals, the colonists, as the 
Swedes on the Delaware, and others who may 
have been here for a long time, the mixing is 
quite complete. Only a few racial traits remain 
as characteristics of a foreign race. 

Where, however, the immigrants have ar- 
rived later, and the opportunities for mixing are 
less favorable, the process of Americanization 
is much slower. Another more general factor 
is the readiness with which some nationalities 
amalgamate. A glance at our nation readily 
shows that certain races do so with difficulty 
and others remain a separate people though 
forming a part of the nation. Such separating 
characteristics are found in every nation, large 
or small, and are especially evident in Norway. 
This is particularly true of what is termed 
"Easterners", their mental and physical traits 



56 

are quite different from the "Westerners," the 
Easterners being distinctly of the dolichocepha- 
lic — long headed type; while the Westerners 
have strong tendencies to the brachycephalic — 
broad headed type. "Not only are the broad- 
headed coast districts darker as a whole; in 
them the brachycephalic individuals actually 
tend to be darker than the other types, as Arbo 
has clearly shown. Finally, while, as our map 
of stature indicates, the population of this south- 
western corner of Norway is not distinctively 
shorter than the remainder of the country, 
nevertheless, in this region the broadest-headed 
types incline to shortness of stature. In 
temperament these people, un-Teutonic in all of 
the ways we have described, are also peculiar. 
They seem to be more emotional, loquacious, 
and susceptible to leadership, in contradistinc- 
tion to the stolid, reserved and independent 
Teutons." (The Races of Europe by Ripley, p. 
208.) Similar peculiarities are found in Swe- 
den, especially north of Jemtland and Helsinge, 
where the dark, broad-headed and short type 
predominates. Such characteristics cannot be 
eliminated completely in the new country. 

On the basis of what has been said, we may 
ask, is amalgamation possible only by uniform- 
ity, or may habits and peculiarities be retained, 
and yet have one people? Is variety and unity 
possible? No nation is a perfect unity with no 
variation, and if variation is necessary to 



57 

progress, the answer must be, unity yet variety ; 
otherwise a nation would stagnate; continuing 
the same reasoning, the nation with the greatest 
variety will progress the most rapidly. Con- 
cluding, an absolute uniformity is not necessary 
to national welfare. 

The extent of variety is best seen in the 
customs and languages as retained by the 
immigrants. When travelling through our 
country, we cannot fail to notice the peculiari- 
ties of the various localities as these may be 
Scandinavian, German, Russian, or any other 
nationality represented. In spite of these pecu- 
liarities, the people are generally good and loyal 
Americans, ready and willing at any time, if 
duty should call, to march to battle for the 
defence of their adopted country. 

As a national custom of Scandinavians, their 
sports may be mentioned first. These are 
practiced for generations in their adopted land, 
for skiing with high jumps, rowing, swimming 
and "turning"' in its various branches appears 
to be their second nature. Mountains, valleys 
and fjords have for centuries been national 
factors in the making of the Scandinavians. 
Further, in America, the national dish is long 
maintained, — fladbr^d, sylte, ludefisk, grjzfd, 
and many others too numerous to mention, are 
evident for generations. As a result of this, 
the various Scandinavian institutions through- 
out our country set two tables, one being for 



58 

Americans, as the latter do not as a rule find the 
national dish palatable. 

Chorus singing is another Scandinavian 
national characteristic. As a consequence we 
find a very large number of choral associations 
in New York City and throughout the country. 
Young men of the second and third generation 
will often endeavor to learn Scandinavian, if 
for no other reason than that they might join 
the "Chorus," where the songs as a rule are 
national in character. Each nationality is repre- 
sented in its Sang erf orhund as the Norske, 
Svenske and Danske national sangerforbund. 
A Scandinavian forbund comprising represen- 
tatives from the three nations existed for a few 
years, but soon dissolved, because of jealousy. 

The retention of their languages is not the 
strongest feature of the Scandinavians. The 
rapid loss of their language reduces their in- 
fluence, and our American nation thus fails to 
receive from them what lies imbedded in the 
language of the country, as culture, literature 
and art. Their efficiency likewise is reduced by 
the loss of one language. This rapid loss is 
especially noticeable in cities and districts where 
the immigrant comes in contact with Americans 
or other nationalities. Where, however, the 
district is exclusively Scandinavian, and the 
settlers are established in their own customs, 
the people will remain quite thorough foreigners 



59 

for generations, as in Goodhue, Filmore and 
Lac Qui Parle counties in Minnesota. 

Generally speaking, the Scandinavians be- 
come Americanized too rapidly. This is also 
evident to themselves, hence the many means 
taken to keep them true to their national traits 
and customs. A powerful means is the paro- 
chial schools, under the supervision of their 
church organizations. They have several 
teachers' seminaries and normal schools for the 
preparation of teachers. These schools have a 
double purpose, the first is to teach the prin- 
ciples of religion, since the Scandinavian coun- 
tries are very thorough in their religious in- 
struction. Another purpose for which the 
parochial school is used, is to teach the foreign 
language to the children. This is an unpeda- 
gogical procedure, as books intended for the 
instruction of religion are not usually adapted 
for text books from which to teach foreign 
tongues. 

National societies are often organized to 
counteract American influence, and bitterly do 
many of them bewail any mark of the American 
stamp : a member who might thus be affected 
would at once be considered as having dis- 
honored the good name of his native country. 
It is evident that such societies cannot have a 
large nor a permanent membership, their nar- 
rowness forbids it, the Scandinavian nature 
soon rebels against such bonds, and American 



60 

influence lends a helping and relieving hand. 
If some of these societies were to be judged by 
their "noise", they would indeed be considered 
masterful. The majority of them represent 
extremes, and as extremes are generally bad, 
they cannot accomplish much. Still, in the very 
formation and perhaps early dissolution of some 
of these societies we can see vivid evidence of 
foreign traits coming into contact with Ameri- 
can conditions. The disposition to form so- 
cieties shows the desire to retain national indi- 
vidualism, while the ease with which such 
societies split up may show, especially among 
the Danes, national cosmopolitanism and a rapid 
response to the dictates of American assimila- 
tion. When, however, societies are organized 
among the immigrants who have only lately ar- 
rived and whose one aim and purpose is to show 
America "how to do things" the result is that, 
while this may be necessary, the members are 
usually shown first and the clubs disappear. 
The Danes seem to lead the other Scandinavians 
in forming societies. In fact this associative 
trait sets off and marks the Danish-American 
in the same sense as the political and churchly 
associative traits characterize the Norwegian- 
and Swedish-American. The Danes have three 
national bodies in America, the Danish Brother- 
hood in America, The United Danish Societies 
in America, and the Association of Danish 
People in America. Of these the last is the 



61 

most venerable; it dates its birth from the year 
1887 and is the result of the efforts of Rev. 
F. L. Gruntvig, and its principal aims are to 
perpetuate the spiritual inheritance of Denmark, 
and to preserve the language of that country 
without neglecting the duties of American 
citizenship. There are several other societies 
classed as national, but which are in reality 
American Scandinavian societies. They help 
the immigrant to retain the culture of his native 
land; when this has been "toned" in the 
American culture and made a part of it, the 
immigrant and American have both improved, 
reciprocally they have given their best. The 
membership of this class of societies is generally 
composed of Scandinavians of the second and 
third generations, men of education and influ- 
ence, politically, socially and otherwise. 

The Scandinavian press is a factor the 
politician reckons with, as, like the Irishman, 
the Scandinavian is a born politician. The 
Scandinavian press exerts an immense influence 
among its people. It aims to be impartial, 
politically independent, but is often found to 
favor special candidates and parties so openly 
that the effect of the "almighty dollar" is quite 
evident. It is much to be regretted that the 
press is thus "for sale", as its readers are largely 
guided by its advice, many of them are unable 
to read the American press and literature, and 
hence are forced to depend exclusively on their 



62 

own Scandinavian publications for information. 
In justice to all papers, it must be said that 
many are absolutely independent and dissemi- 
nate truthful information regarding the issues 
of the day. The press, as is true also of the 
societies, may be divided into the sacred and 
the secular. The different church organizations 
of the three nationalities have their own papers, 
which are known as their official organs. Spe- 
cial papers are also published in the interest of 
missions, Sunday schools, and for the young 
people. With a few exceptions, the papers are 
well and ably edited and exercise a wholesome 
influence upon their readers. 

It is to be remembered that the Scandinavian 
press, especially the secular, is mindful of the 
fact that it appears in a foreign language, and 
hence is a strong factor for the preservation of 
that particular language. This result of selfish- 
ness, however, does not detract from its general 
usefulness and efficiency. 

The last of the means to be considered for 
the retention of Scandinavian traits is the 
teaching of northern languages in the public 
schools and universities. This factor concerns 
every American when he is thus brought in 
direct contact with these languages in our 
schools. In several of the universities of the 
middle west plays from Scandinavian authors 
have been given, and a thorough study is made 
of Northern literature by Scandinavian and 



63 

American students. During the last few years 
great activity has aroused special interest in 
these languages, and nearly all cities in Scandi- 
navian centers have made Norwegian, Swedish 
and Danish a part of the regular high school 
course. In their efforts to obtain this privilege, 
the Scandinavians received the loyal support of 
the foremost American educators in their vari- 
ous states, a fact that is much appreciated bv 
those who have this innovation at heart. This 
effort to bring the language and literature into 
our American schools is the most legitimate 
manner in which to establish Scandinavian cul- 
ture as a permanent addition to American cul- 
ture, and through the national sifting process, 
that which is most needed and best will be re- 
tained. It is worthy of notice, that this effort 
is largely promulgated by the Americanized 
Scandinavians, who with difficulty can speak the 
Scandinavian tongues. It appears evident that 
they are aware of their loss and anxious to have 
re-established the opportunity for their pos- 
terity. 

We have thus far considered only the anti- 
American factors, but many and more pro- 
American factors may be mentioned. Their 
potency is great, and every immigrant bows 
more or less, sooner or later, to their influence. 
To enumerate them is impossible, as, generally 
speaking, what the immigrant sees and hears, 
the air he breathes, the soil he steps on, is 



64 

American. No wonder, that unless they are in- 
susceptible to impression, the newcomers soon 
become Americanized. Especially must this be 
true if they come here to establish permanent 
homes, as to them it is an advantage to become 
"acclimated", and "be a hero in the strife.'"' 
The Scandinavian soon discovers that to be a 
"greeny" is distinctly a handicap to success; 
hence, gracefully and willingly he submits to 
the Americanizing forces. Though everything 
about us is an American force, there are, how- 
ever, certain ones that must receive special men 
tion and that may be classed as direct agencies 
in the process of Americanization. 

As the first direct means we mention 
our public school, the great melting pot of young- 
America. Here all meet on common ground, 
with the same teachers, same classrooms, Jew 
and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, side by side, 
one great democracy where democratic Ameri- 
can principles are expounded for about twelve 
years in the life of our youth. These years 
represent the time of the greatest plasticity and 
susceptibility in the life of the human being. 
No vivid imagination is needed to understand 
the significance of this to the youth of the 
country, be they immigrant children or native 
l)orn. 

The school has an indirect influence upon 
the parents. The children receive their instruc- 
tion at school, discuss it at home with brothers, 



65 

sisters and parents and thus all, whether young- 
er old, come under the influence of the school. 
To the large majority of school children the 
dictates of the teachers are law and verity, 
hence they will defend them in no uncertain 
terms. 

In the rural districts of the northwest there 
were to be found a number of years ago in- 
numerable instances where the immigrant father 
depended on his boy in school to translate and 
to inform him regarding points of important 
detail. In other communities the rural school 
districts were, and in fact had to be, supervised 
almost wholly by the rural immigrants, since 
the latter had the exclusive possession of the 
land. To-day such conditions still prevail al- 
though to a more limited extent. The new- 
comers take an active part in assuming the 
school duties of their neighborhoods, but they 
rarely do anything specific beyond hiring the 
teachers and issuing the warrants granting their 
pay. The course of study and the selection of 
text books are generally left to the teachers and 
superintendents. The county superintendent of 
schools, whose chief duty is to examine and 
license teachers, is too often a political product, 
hence when a son or a daughter of an influen- 
tial voter seeks a teacher's certificate it is 
generally granted without due regard to the 
qualifications of the applicant. Such teachers 
assume the duties of their profession and under- 



66 

take to teach the children entrusted to their 
care. 

The above description shows our schools as 
managed by immigrants; their efficiency as a 
means of Americanization is, of course, greatly 
reduced in consequence, and at times instructors 
are apt to inculcate foreign principles. This 
is especially true when the teacher belongs to 
the immigrant class. In spite of these difficul- 
ties the school will ultimately reach its goal and 
be a truly American product. Where it is not, 
may we not believe that it serves its purpose 
but by being what circumstances make it? To 
the Scandinavians the public school is nothing 
new, school attendance in their native land is 
compulsory, they come prepared and eager to 
reap its benefits. In the Middle West where the 
Scandinavians are most numerous and where 
we must go if we wish to study them as a people 
in America, few homes are found where the 
sons and daughters have not made faithful use 
of the public school. The Scandinavians, fur- 
ther, own a large number of high-schools which 
are well attended. This, however, does not de- 
tract from their interest in the state schools as 
is amply proven by the state normal schools 
and universities in Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, 
Wisconsin and Illinois. The schools, being thus 
zealously sought and faithfully attended, must 
be a potent factor in the making of the Ameri- 
can nation. 



67 

Business, by many supposed to be the royal 
road to wealth and the source of the much 
sought dollar, has not the charm to a Scandi- 
navian that it has to many others. If it had, 
Scandinavians would not to-day be the owners 
of our best country homes and lands. In dis- 
cussing business as a factor, we must consider 
it first as a factor acting upon the individual 
and secondly as the means through which the 
immigrant is gradually transformed — that is, 
by himself being the owner or proprietor of a 
concern, in what is to him a foreign country. 
The centers of business in a community, if con- 
ducted on an American plan by Americans, are 
educational factors. The proprietor, wishing to 
establish his interests, will seek the good will of 
the foreigners, rendering such assistance as he 
is able to help them in their attempt to conform 
to and adopt the American customs. The re- 
quests for assistance are many and varied, and 
offer excellent opportunity for exploiting the 
immigrant, should the influential shop-keeper so 
desire. It may be said, however, of the 
American business man, that he cannot be ac- 
cused of having abused this opportunity to any 
great extent. The above recited facts are es- 
pecially applicable to the country towns 
throughout our vast rural districts, where the 
immigrants have settled. In large cities these 
conditions are otherwise met. A different phase 
of the question appears when the business man 



68 

is one of the immigrants who may have arrived 
a few years earlier and during this time has 
clerked in some American store because the 
nature of the American business demanded a 
salesman who could speak the foreign language 
or language of the people visiting the place of 
business. Having thus become familiar with 
the business and the people, the immigrant will 
soon be a competitor with his former employer. 
In the Middle West innumerable instances of 
the above are found. 

Particularized, the business is as a rule the 
general store. The majority of such places 
conducted by the immigrants in the Middle 
West began in a very primitive form, — sugar, 
coflFee, tobacco, overalls and green leather boots 
being the staple articles of nearly every country 
store. Earnings soon paved the way for an 
extension of the business, and in a few years 
many establishments of considerable magnitude 
were started. Very few large establishments, 
however, were owned and controlled exclusively 
by Scandinavians, as these people lacked the 
commercial instinct, and their financial re- 
sources were limited. What they had at their 
command when arriving were strong hands and 
a willingness to endure hard work. These were 
qualities rather than material means. Having 
more of these qualities than means, we can 
easily understand why these Northerns are 
not found in "big business," but rather in agri- 



69 

culture. There is in the Middle West a Scandi- 
navian bank in nearly every Scandinavian town 
or village, the bank being what is termed a state 
bank, as the cash capital required for such an 
institution is only $10,000, whereas for a na- 
tional bank $25,000 is the minimum. Limited 
capital is clearly the cause for the large number 
of state banks. Of recent years, however, the 
Scandinavians have been gradually entering 
larger business relations, because the second and 
third generations have inherited and acquired 
means to do so. Being a progressive people 
they soon embark upon their own careers, and 
prove the statement, — the Scandinavians are 
becoming qualified and have secured the means 
for large business. 

Closely connected with business and usually 
found in every town is the town hall, used for 
political and civic purposes. Political gather- 
ings are usually held in these, and in the rural 
school houses, the speaker being some young, 
ambitious man running for county attorney, su- 
perintendent of schools, or some local office. 
In these Scandinavian political gatherings, the 
meetings are arranged either by the Americans 
for the purpose of the votes to be received, or 
by some politically ambitious man of Scandi- 
navian allegiance. In either case much merit 
can be ascribed to the political gathering. In 
all cities having a considerable percentage of 
Scandinavians, political associations or clubs 



70 

are found. These, however, are usually fathered 
by some party or parties for personal gains. 
The selfish politician preys upon the Scandi- 
navian people as upon others through the vari- 
ous means at his command; as one of these 
we may mention the American press; this 
powerful factor for good and bad in our na- 
tional life does not exert the influence upon the 
immigrant that is generally accorded it, as the 
immigrant's knowledge of the English language 
is so limited that he reads it with difficulty. The 
large city papers especially miss their mark in 
this line. The local country papers yield a far 
greater influence through their short and direct 
attack or defence of a candidate or cause. 

The general influence of the American press 
is, and will continue to be, quite limited on all 
immigrants not familiar with the English lan- 
guage; e. g. the press first becomes a factor 
in the life of the native born generation. Other 
readers are susceptible only in a small degree 
to American influence through this agency, a 
fact which is not to be deplored. The press, 
however, as a social force is one thing and the 
Scandinavians as a social force is another, and 
the former need not be discussed under the 
heading of the latter. 

The last of the direct means of Americani- 
zation is the result of being co-zvorkers. As the 
public school was considered the great melting 
pot for young America, so may the factories. 



71 

the shops and the many other establishments 
which bring many thousands of men of every 
type in daily contact, be considered the melting 
pot for the vast number of adults. In the 
places mentioned, the Americans may not pre- 
vail numerically, but our American language is 
made the common vehicle of expression for the 
German, the Jew, the Italian, and the Scandi- 
navian. The accepted common language, and 
the American surroundings make this condition 
a powerful means for Americanization. It is 
to be noted, however, that this process has a 
tendency to make a people peculiar to them- 
selves, retaining and receiving, as they inevit- 
ably must, from one another more or less of the 
respective peculiar racial characteristics. Evi- 
dently it was this Senator Bailey of Texas had 
in mind when he, on the floor of the Senate in 
discussing the Immigration Bill, said that the 
senators from New York were not and could 
not be true representatives of what is American, 
as their constituency was too tainted with 
European traits. 

Further evidence of foreign marks is found 
in oft-quoted expressions, such as "You under- 
stand," which is so largely used in the East by 
all classes of people, and is the result of a large 
number of people speaking to one another in a 
language of which one or both parties have only 
limited knowledge. The shrug of the shoulders 
likewise so common in the same centers of 



72 

population is an Italian characteristic; the wave 
of the hand, so evident even in an ordinary con- 
versation, is acquired from an unconscious im- 
mitation and daily contact with Jews. 

Generally, however, the influence of the 
shops and factories are favorable to American 
citizenship. Our language must be spoken more 
or less. For this reason a man who may have 
arrived only a few years ago prefers to speak 
English after having worked for a compara- 
tively short time in such surroundings. The 
man who has adopted the language of our 
country, will also more readily adopt our cus- 
toms, manners and culture. 

From the above we can understand why 
Scandinavians became Americanized so readily 
— they accept our language, think our thoughts, 
and hence do as we do. 

Having discussed the final factor under the 
direct means of Americanization, a few words 
on the indirect will be added. Generally the 
immigrants will accept the people of the country 
as of a higher standard than themselves in 
social, literary and political life. The immigrant 
being unable to speak the language, is often con- 
sidered ignorant, whereas in his own mother 
tongue he may be quite equal in education to 
the people in his adopted land. Things may be 
similar and yet quite unlike. This is a con- 
dition applicable to various countries. The im- 
migrant may know thoroughly how a certain 



73 

thing was done at home, but in attempting to 
apply the same methods in the new country, 
will fail utterly. Hence the apparent ignorance. 
As stated, the immigrants feel the superiority of 
the population of the adopted country and it.; 
prestige in social, literary and political life. 

The American nation, in dominating the im- 
migrants coming to its shores, offers them the 
prestige of its ideals. To the newly arriving 
foreigners it means an improvement in manners 
and customs to obtain the imprint of American 
culture. To them such an acquisition signifies 
progress and the promise of fulfilled ambitions 
in their new home. Thus the immigrant un- 
consciously becomes more plastic under the 
American agencies of amalgamation. 

We have noted the means of Americaniza- 
tion. We may ask the question, "Should 
foreigners be Americanized with the greatest 
speed?" The natural answer is "Yes, the 
sooner the better." ' We are not so certain that 
the question has only one side, hence a brief 
discussion of the two sides will follow. 

The desirability of Americanization is over- 
emphasized, due probably to a wrong concep- 
tion of what is American. What is truly 
American is not easily ascertained, as we have 
no place where the population belong to an 
original American race. The Swedes and Ger- 
mans in Pennsylvania may have been there for 
ten generations. In the Middle West we have 



74 

the first and second generation Scandinavians — 
by birth they are all Americans, but they are 
not alike. The conception of what is American 
is different. In other places we have other 
nationalities which may have been here for ten 
generations. They are different from any of 
the above mentioned peoples; all, however, are 
Americans, but the racial characteristics of the 
original race are manifest. The Pennsylvania 
Dutch and the Swedes of Delaware may be as 
truly representative of the American as the 
New Englander, although the latter claims to be 
the only representative of what is truly Ameri- 
can. The German or Scandinavian trait which 
has persisted in America for centuries is as 
much American as an English or French trait 
which has prevailed for the same length of time 
in our country. America is yet in the making, 
and time will make it. Centuries will be re- 
quired for this process of amalgamation; our 
nation is as yet to a large extent an immigrant 
nation or the result of such, — hence foreign 
traits must be accepted as part of the very es- 
sence of true Americanization. To become 
Americanized in New York is one thing, in 
Wisconsin, Minnesota or Texas is quite another 
thing. We must not have too narrow a con- 
ception of what is American. If we have, 
several brands of Americanism must be ac- 
cepted. 

Ripley rightly considers the various tenden- 



75 

cies and traits found in Norway. He distin- 
guishes between the coast people or "West- 
landers," and the in-land people or "Eastern- 
ers." He locates the purest representatives 
of the Teutonic race in Gudbrandsdalen and 
Odalen in Norway. Similarly such conditions 
are found more or less in every country. H 
found in the old European countries with 
limited territory and more than two thousand 
years of time for amalgamation, have we any 
right to expect America, with her vast territory 
and comparatively limited time, to have ac- 
complished completely this process? On the 
one hand, assimilation should be more difficult 
to-day, as every nation is more firmly estab- 
lished than a thousand years ago ; on the other, 
less difficult as the modern means of travel, and 
the press, make the nations and the world more 
like one people. 

As to the above facts, Ross, in his "Founda- 
tions of Sociology" says, p. 386, "The anthropo- 
logist thinks he can perceive a distinct American 
type, the formation of which he would attribute 
not to climate or crossing of strains, but to the 
same process that creates improved varieties of 
domestic plants or animals ; viz., selection." 

It is not to be inferred, however, that we 
have no distinct American type, but this type 
is not yet fixed and should not be made too 
narrow, li we do so, Americanism would mean 
the Americanized foreigner from some special 



76 

European country. What then may be con- 
sidered the American characteristic? Ross, in 
his "Foundations of Sociology," p. 389, says it 
is "Energy of will." Evidence of this is seen 
in business competition, or as the author just 
quoted says in the same paragraph: "In the 
conquest of the wilderness, in our faith in ef- 
ficiency as the only goal of education" we see 
this energy of will. No people pardons more 
to the successful man or holds the persistently 
poor in such pity and contempt as weaklings 
that cannot get into the game. In the American, 
action predominates over imagination and re- 
flection. "He is the true anti-Buddist, the Oc- 
cidental raised to the n'th power. Hence the 
American rocking-chair, solace of the overtired. 
Hence "Time is money," "Boil it down," 
"twenty minutes for dinner," etc. "The edi- 
torial is read instead of the magazine article, — 
to the women are relegated religion, literature, 
art, social elegancies, — whatever, in short 
demands repose." To succeed, to do so in a 
kindly manner, uprightly and fairly, rather than 
by guile or resource, is the policy of the Ameri- 
can ; to succeed at all events, to bring action into 
play, this is the American incarnate. Now the 
question arises whether the floods of immigra- 
tion which are pouring into our country may 
not in time despoil this American characteristic. 
It has been stated that variation is neces- 
sary to progress; consequently why should our 



77 

attempts be directed towards securing a com- 
plete unification or assimilation? It is evident 
that every immigrant coming to America should 
become an integral part of the country. This 
process, however, must be along natural lines, 
and not in a forced manner. Hot-house plants 
may look well but they have not the hardihood 
and qualities of resistance equal to that of 
plants raised in the open, for such have been 
subjected to the winds and strong air. Simi- 
larly the immigrant who is forced to become 
Americanized may acquire the American veneer, 
but lack the true inner nature which should 
regulate the external condition of the man. 
Even though we concede that all or the majority 
of our immigrants intend to become citizens of 
this country, and to identify themselves with 
the development of it, we cannot expect them 
to break off all allegiance, remembrance and 
impressions of their fatherland in a day. The 
Honorable Charles Nagel, Secretary of Com- 
merce and Labor, in his article on "Loyalty to 
One's Country" says : "I shall never forget the 
first time I returned to the native country of 
my parents. When I looked upon the red roofs 
among the green trees of Bremerhaven, I felt 
that I had at one time lived there. Such was 
the influence of the mother-country upon 
the bringing up of an American boy." There 
is no reason why the best sentiments in the 
human heart should be destroyed when it is the 



78 

best that can be contributed to American citi- 
zenship. "You may believe in traditions," says 
Charles Nagel, "and you may be anxious to 
bring to the attention of this country the great 
achievements and the brilliant history of your 
ancestors. I go farther than that; I am not 
only anxious to impress this country with the 
greatness of my forefathers, but I believe that 
the fullest development of the United States 
depends upon our getting the fullest benefit of 
everything that every other country can con- 
tribute." This is accomplished through time, 
and must be the result of a natural adaptation to 
the conditions of America. The different forces 
at work in our United States can not be brought 
together at once. The conditions under which 
the citizenship of this country is made up, are 
constantly changing. The foreigners came to our 
country by invitation or by consent, and we 
do not have substitution but amalgamation of 
the component parts. Hence we must endeavor 
to retain the virtues of the nations and to 
eradicate the vices. America needs the taste of 
the French, the capacity for intensive study of 
the German, and the tact of the Dane. 

The further discussion of this subject will 
be continued under three different phases. The 
first we will call stage one, this being the period 
following immediate landing of the immigrant, 
when results of foreign training are manifest 
in thoughts, words and deeds. An attempt to 



79 

make a foreigner a complete American at this 
stage would and ought to fail. Though walk- 
ing on American soil and surrounded by an 
environment quite American, his thoughts, i. e. 
his soul life, is and will remain for a consider- 
able length of time foreign, and mostly reflect 
the thoughts received whilst in his native land. 
With more or less success, he may be able to 
"think one thing, and do another thing," but 
generally the thought originates the act, the 
latter being thought in action. During this time 
the immigrant may acquire more or less of the 
ability to speak and read our language, but the 
complaint is often heard that though the words 
are English, the thoughts are in the foreign 
language ; i. e. the strangers think in one 
language and speak in another, a sort of silent 
translation. 

The second stage represents the Scandi- 
navian American who may be foreign born but 
who has become considerably Americanized by 
the means already mentioned in this chapter. 
The expression "Scandinavian-American" is 
commonly used in the Middle West to indicate 
this class of our American citizens, and includes 
men who have fought and suffered for our 
country during the Civil and Spanish-American 
Wars. 

The last and final stage in Americanization 
is reached when we have the American by birth, 
and American by environment. We are in- 



80 

formed that an individual is made what he is 
by physical and social heredity, and by the en- 
vironment; if this is true, little remains to be 
added in order to have a complete American. 
It must be noted, however, that the above 
process is comparatively slow and not as rapid 
as the popular mind might demand it. Hence 
the conclusion — Americanization is desirable, 
but only as rapidly as the country can absorb 
the immigrant and as rapidly as the immigrant 
may be able to become a part of the new regime. 

"Lat OS ikkje forfederna gl^yma, 
Under alt, som me venda og snu. 
For dei gav os ein arv til at gjjzlyma, 
Han er stjz^rre, ann mange vil tru. 

Lat det merkjast i meir enn i ordi, 
At me halda den arven istand, 
At, naar federne sjaa att paa jordi, 
Dei kan kjenna sitt folk af sitt land." 

Ivar Aasen. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Economic Influence of Scandinavians in 
America. 

Every immigrant arriving in this country be- 
comes an economic factor. He must join forces 
either with the producing or the consuming 
class. The Scandinavians have especially been 
identified with the former which constitutes 
largely the agricultural class and have also 
furnished their quota to the consuming class. 
When in the preceding chapter we described 
the Scandinavians as having more qualities for 
work than means for business, we also gave the 
reason why they are capable of attaining suc- 
cess in the agriculture of our country. Agricul- 
ture contributes to three indispensible needs of 
life of every civilized man, — food, clothing, 
and shelter. More persons are engaged in this 
occupation than in any other. About one-third 
of the population of the United States are 
farmers. The importance of this industry, how- 
ever, is not in the number employed, but in 
the fact that it produces most of the food 

81 



82 

supply for the nation, and the raw material for 
several other industries. When on the follow- 
ing pages we use the general term farm we 
think of the running of a farm, and the raising 
of products on the land. The word agriculture 
is often used to include all thd enterprises con- 
nected with the farm. As there is no real dis- 
tinction between farming and agriculture, these 
words in this chapter will be used as synonym- 
ous terms. 

America is one of the most independent 
nations of the earth, this independance is due 
not only to the American spirit, but also to the 
immense natural resources and productive farm 
lands throughout the country. Up to the present 
time, through the high tariff system, foreign 
goods of nearly every description have been 
barred, and this is possible because the country 
is, generally speaking, self supporting. The 
three necessities of life mentioned, food, cloth- 
ing, and shelter are amply produced by the 
American farmer. 

The magnitude and importance of agricul- 
ture is clearly seen in the report of Ex-Secretary 
Tames Wilson, who served as Secretary of 
Agriculture for sixteen years, 1897 — 1913. The 
first year of his service began with a yearly 
farm production worth foiw billion dollars, and 
the last closed with nine billion five hundred and 
thirty-two million dollars. The farmer, in spite 
of abandoned farms, is making a steady in- 



83 

crease in his wealth production from year to 
year. "Considering," /says Mr. Wilson, "the 
wealth produced on farms in 1899 to be re- 
garded as 100, the wealth produced sixteen 
years ago or in 1897 represented by 84, and 
the wealth produced 1912 by 202.1, during the 
sixteen years the farmers' wealth production in- 
creased 141." These figures represent the 
farmers' contribution to the wealth of the 
nation, and show its "basic importance to the 
nation." He further states that during the last 
sixteen years of his term of office the wealth 
production of farms reached the grand total of 
more than one hundred and five billion dollars. 
"This stream of wealth has poured out of the 
farmers' horn of plenty, and in sixteen years 
has equalled about three-fourths of the present 
national wealth." The year 1912 produced 
enormous crops, only two, wheat and tobacco, 
have been exceeded twice in production, and 
only two, cotton and rice, have been exceeded 
once in production. "All of the other crops 
stand at the high water mark." As an evidence 
of the growth of agriculture, Mr. Wilson calls 
attention to the progress made in the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture during his sixteen years 
of service. He began with what he terms the 
kindergarten department and leaves it with "a 
thousand tongues speaking with authority." 
Bureaus have been created for various lines of 
work. Investigation and administration as to 



84 

methods and improvement of farming have 
added greatly to scientific agriculture. 'The de- 
partment has become a great agriculture uni- 
versity for post-graduate work." In 1897 the 
department of agriculture had 2,444 employees, 
and an appropriation of $3,272,902. At the 
close of the last presidential administration it 
had 13,558 employees and an appropriation for 
1912, of about $25,000,000. There is now an 
average of 52,000 requests every week for de- 
partmental publications; in 1897 the average 
was 500 per week. During Mr. Wilson's six- 
teen years of service, a total of 225 million 
copies of these publications were distributed. 
From the above figures we must admit the 
enormous growth of agriculture in our country. 
In order, however, to arrive at a just conclusion 
as to where the country stands to-day with re- 
spect to agriculture, the figures must be taken 
relatively. During the last decade the popula- 
tion of the United States, as a whole, increased 
21 per cent. The rural population, however, 
increased only 11.2 per cent. The increase in 
the number of farms during the period was 
10.9 per cent. The value of farm property from 
1900 to 1910 increased 100.5 per cent. The 
greater part of this immense increase was in the 
land itself, the value of which increased 118.1 
per cent; the average size of farms decreased 
from 146.2 acres in 1900 to 138.1 acres in 1910. 
This shows a tendency slowly but surely toward 



85 

the smaller farm. The population increasing, 
and no more government land to be given away, 
the general acreage must become less, which 
will also mean more intensive and less extensive 
farming. It is significant that the decrease or 
slow increase in the rural population through- 
out the large areas of the United States is not. 
due to the absence of agricultural prosperity. 
States showing a decrease or only very slight 
increase in rural population during the past 
decade show a large increase in the value of 
farm property. In spite of this splendid finan- 
cial showing and apparent prosperity, large 
numbers of young people leave the farms. The 
loss of this rural population is due to economic, 
social and educational causes, as will appear 
later in the chapter. The economic cause which 
has driven so many from the farms may be 
clearly pointed out. It began about twenty-five 
years ago when hard times for the farmer pre- 
vailed throughout the country. To raise grain 
and cattle at a constant loss or for the board 
is a vocation which even the most sanguine will 
not pursue for any length of time. Raisins^ 
wheat at $0.40 per bushel when $0.75 per bushel 
is the least at which it can be raised and bring 
a small profit to the producer will not attract 
the ambitious youth of the country. Such were 
the agricultural economic conditions which pre- 
vailed for many years, and that caused the 
exodus from the country to the city. Sheer 



86 

necessity drove the youth to seek something 
better. However, the faithful remained, and 
received their just reward. During the period 
just mentioned, it was necessary that young and 
old, men and women work on the farm. This 
the Scandinavians and the Germans were wil- 
ling to do. Women pitching wheat bundles, 
haying and plowing, was no uncommon sight 
at that time. The return in cash received for 
farm products was so small that it forbade the 
hiring of farm laborers. The representatives of 
the Scandinavian nations were among the few 
who would endure such hardships, many 
farmers of other nationalities sacrificed their 
land at a very low price or entirely abandoned 
it. This explains why to-day the Scandinavians 
and the Germans are the owners of our best 
farms and country homes. It is said out west 
that when passing through the rural districts, 
it is possible only by ordinary observation to 
distinguish the homes of the Scandinavians and 
the Germans from those of their fellow farmers 
of whatever race they may be. Good, well- 
kept buildings, orderly farm yards, tell the tale. 
The cause just mentioned, the economic, is 
specific. Another which may be considered 
equally decisive in its effect is the desire for 
social privileges and opportunities. Especially 
the young people leave the land because of the 
dreariness and the lack of facinations and 
charms so prominent in even the smallest 



87 

country village. The comforts and luxuries of 
city life contrast strongly with the smoking candle 
and soiled working clothes. It is in the cities 
the country youth acquires the new tastes and 
habits which they can never renounce, and in 
which they indulge freely in city life, — hence 
they remain. Should they by chance return to 
the plow, it is but for a short time. The weary 
and monotonous life of the field does not pos- 
sess enough charm to overcome their longing 
for city life, and so at the first opportunity they 
return. Their great ambition is to become 
functionaries, postmen, floor-walkers or railway 
employees. The women have not escaped this 
contagion. They have become fascinated by the 
sights and the styles of the town. Jules Meline 
in "The Return to the Land," p. 92, says, "They 
have derived from them (the cities) a taste for 
gaiety and fine dresses and holiday making. On 
their return their village seems to them dull, 
the farm dirty and dismal, and their work re- 
pugnant ; the laborer seems to them stupid and 
loutish compared with the seductive youths who 
have lavished money on them in the towns. 
The role of a farmer's wife seems to them 
despicable and they will have nothing to do 
with any of the young men of the village ex- 
cept those who have become clerks or func- 
tionaries. This picture suggests something of 
the change that has come over the life of most 
of our villages during the last twenty years. 



88 

We can instance several cases of great agricul- 
tural families which have given up splendid 
properties with aching hearts because their sons 
could not find women to marry them and share 
their life in the country." 

The new science of agriculture endeavors to 
remedy the shortcoming of the farm. The 
rural mail delivery, rural telephones, the inven- 
tion of gas and electric lighting systems, the 
gasoline motor, modern farm machinery for 
every kind of work, and last but not least, the 
automobile, will bestow the coveted dignity 
sought by nearly every human being, upon even 
the farmer. Hence we may expect a return to 
the land movement. Another reason the farmer 
felt the humbleness of his industry was the fact 
that scientific agriculture did not keep pace with 
the general science pertaining to the manu- 
facturing industries which fascinated all eyes, 
absorbed all minds, and gave rise to all kinds of 
hopes. But now when farming is being re- 
instated in its place from the standpoint of 
science, it must also be reinstated from the do- 
main of economics. The humility inflicted upon 
it in former years is still felt, and much re- 
mains to be done before it can rank in popu- 
larity with the competitive industries. It is 
well to point out the present high standing of 
the farmer and his future possibilities. New 
openings are needed every day for labor, as the 
more difficult the labor problem becomes in the 



89 

factories of our cities, the stronger will become 
the movement back to the land. Jules Meline, 
p. 83, says, "What is to become of our countless 
workers unable to find work? There is but 
one opening, one resourse for them — an open- 
ing wide enough for all, and resources that will 
be inexhaustible for centuries yet to come : — 
the land." Truly one million people less in 
New York City, and the fertile prairies of North 
Dakota increased by the same number would be 
a boon to the city and state, and alleviate a 
great deal of suffering for the idle million of 
this great city. The land is calling for tillers 
and offers vast opportunities. The Scandi- 
navians have heard the call, obeyed it, and have 
chosen the most fertile land found in the United 
States. The "bread basket" of the world, the 
popular name of the Red River Valley of the 
north is owned by them. 

The economic and social conditions of the^ 
Scandinavian immigrants did not prevent them 
from homesteading in the north central states, 
as they were not trained in ease and luxury. 
Their life was that of the common peasant 
which explains their aptitude for farming and 
desire for a home in their adopted land. When 
arriving in our country the Scandinavians 
brought their families, or if unable to bring 
them at once, prepared and sought to bring them 
at the very earliest opportunity. With the 
family came the need of a home, and as the 



90 

immigrants had severed all economic connec- 
tions with their native land, they had one aim; 
viz, to establish permanent homes. At first 
these homes were very primitive, being dug- 
outs, sod-houses, or when settled near the 
timber, log houses. From the outside such 
houses might look uninviting; inside, however, 
they were generally well finished, being 
plastered, very often papered, and tidy, which 
added to the home comfort. In many instances 
bare earth unadorned constituted the floor, 
which, however, was generally kept quite clean. 
In other instances where it could be afforded, 
rough boards sawed from trees that might be 
nearest at hand, were used for flooring. Im- 
bued with a spirit of permanency and the 
spirit of the Viking which always rebels against 
cramped conditions, the settlers were moved to 
frugality and prudence, which in turn made it 
possible for them to improve their homes. 
Hence very soon, in many instances, the sod 
hut was replaced by what may be properly 
called mansions. Many rural homes are now 
as completely equipped as the majority of city 
homes, having their central heating plant, hot 
and cold water, complete bath-room equipment, 
a small electric or gas plant from which light 
is obtained in the yard, the barn, the granary 
and other houses necessary on a complete farm. 
The home is usually well provided with, though 
not always, well selected pictures and other 



91 

pieces of art. The flooring is no longer tramped 
earth, but hard maple floors covered with rugs 
of a fair quality. The above described homes 
are among the best and are such as any nation 
may be proud of. 

It is often argued that the foreigners coming 
to our country rob the Americans of their op- 
portunities. This may be partly true, yet the 
districts in the United States v^here the im- 
migrant has come into contact with the native 
American does not fully substantiate the charge. 
Before we can have good country homes, we 
must have those who can and will build them : 
before we can have agriculture, we must have 
a class of people who have the aptitude and the 
traits necessary for being farmers. Europeans 
travelling through the United States bestow 
many laurels upon the American farm homes 
which in so many instances in the states men- 
tioned, are built by the Scandinavians and the 
Germans. 

A dark cloud, however, hangs over the 
future of the American-Scandinavian farm- 
house, as some parents lack wisdom to parcel 
out their large farm to their children when they 
become of age, the father retains the land and 
thus inflicts the necessity for the young people 
to leave the homestead for the city or other 
rural districts. When the parents pass away, 
the sons and the daughters have established 
their own homes and can not assume charge of 



92 

their childhood home, hence this unfortunate ar- 
rangement may be the cause of many a farm 
going into the hands of other nationalities and 
the Scandinavian communities losing their 
identity. The people most eager to provide 
homes for their children are the Germans, and 
for this reason they are rapidly purchasing the 
farms of other races and thus establishing com- 
pact communities. This means that the Ger- 
mans have a strong tendency to cohere and 
make permanent communities while the Scandi- 
navian settlements may in some instances dis- 
integrate after the first generation; hence the 
future of present Scandinavian colonies may be 
considered a matter of conjecture. 

Another statement may be added concern- 
ing Scandinavian parents; they desire very 
much to have their sons continue on the farms 
but as renters. This does not bring independ- 
ence but leaves the young people under the 
direct orders of their elders, and while in many 
and many a home there is complete harmony 
between the two generations, in some families 
the giving and taking of orders cause friction 
between the elders and the younger generation. 
This brings about a situation too precarious for 
a man who has assumed the responsibility of 
being the head of a family. Innate racial crav- 
ing for a home impels the son to break the old 
ties and to seek conditions under which a homs 
may be established. 



93 

To analyze and give the reasons why this 
trait is found in the Scandinavians can be done 
only with difficulty. To say it is their nature, 
is not to state the cause. If we could say — 
why this nature, the question would be more 
nearly solved. In attempting to state a why, 
two reasons will be given. It is conceded that 
with an independent nature follows a tendency 
to autocracy; this is seen in Scandinavian 
history when the numerous smaa konger, liter- 
ally little kings, each ruled over his valley and 
immediate vicinity. The desire to rule was so 
great that constant internal strifes and battles 
prevailed between the little kings before any of 
the Scandinavian nations became a unified 
whole. This same psychologic characteristic 
has continued down through history and was the 
cause of the abolition of the nobility and titles 
in Norway though many still adhere to, and 
covet the supposed glory of a title. If all could 
not belong to the nobility or have titles, then 
none should have them, hence the abolishment. 
The last feature reveals another strong trait; 
namely, jealousy. As this trait, however, does 
not constitute an important part in the matter 
here discussed, it will not be further considered. 
Another factor which may explain the attitude 
of Scandinavian fathers to their children is the 
humble condition which had surrounded them 
in their European homes, they were, with few 
exceptions, without any real property. This 



94 

made them what was termed husmaend; i. e. 
husband and his family worked for the bonde, 
the owner of the farm ; for this they received 
a husmaend's quarters, and a very small allow- 
ance. The independent farmer of to-day in the 
Northwest belongs to this class, and it appears 
that the sense of ownership, which is new to 
him, makes this farmer selfish even to his own 
kin, and in attempting to gratify this sense, 
even his sons and daughters must be made his 
servants in their mature years. 

In conclusion, it is necessary to submit some 
statistical data of the agricultural condition of 
the United States in order to bring out the 
agricultural standing of the various states. As 
no statistics are found which show the extent 
of the contribution of the different nationalities 
to the agricultural productions, the information 
obtained from such sources can only be made 
by inference and comparison of the figures in 
the light of what has been said relative to the 
location of the different races. 

It is of interest to note that the states having 
a large percentage of Scandinavians also have 
a large percentage of home-owners. In the 
table given below comprising those states where 
more than 55 per cent of the families have 
homes, the Scandinavians are prominent. 



95 

STATES IN WHICH MORE THAN 55 PER CENT OF THE 

FAMILIES HAVE HOMES. 

State. Pet. 

Indiana 56.1 

Kansas 59.1 

Montana 56.6 

*Nebraska 56.8 

Iowa 60.0 

Maine 64.0 

*Michigan 62.3 

^Minnesota 63.5 

Nevada 66.2 

New Mexico 68.5 

Utah ,.. 67.8 

Vermont 60.4 

*Wisconsin 66.4 

Oklahoma 71.8 

*South Dakota 71.2 

*North Dakota 80.0 

Similarly it may be seen from the following 
table that in the production of wheat and butter, 
these Scandinavian states rank high. 

STATES PRODUCING THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF 
V/HEAT AND BUTTER. 

Wheat Production. 
State. Amount. 

North Dakota 73,200,000 

Kansas ' 51,387,000 

Washington 50,661,000 

Butter Production. 

Iowa 139,022,552 

New York 115,408,222 

Pennsylvania 111,358,246 

Wisconsin 106,552,649 

Ohio 87,638,930 

Illinois 86,548,762 

Michigan 67,872,710 



* The star indicates states in which Scandinavians are 
numerous. 



96 



Both the precgding tables are extracts from 
the following tables which give the percentage 
and figures in full. 

ABSTRACT OF TABLE NO. 26 OF STATISTICAL 
ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1911. 



?• '^. 



Alabama 1,177,457 

Arizona 82.480 

Arkansas 1,077,509 

California 1,106,533 

Colorado 475,136 

Connecticut 395,649 

Delaware 127,809 

Dist. of Columbia 166,711 

Florida 373,967 

Georgia 1,391,058 

Idaho 203,604 

Illinois 2,600,565 

Indiana 2,130,168 

Iowa 1,303,526 

Kansas 1,207,087 

Kentucky 1,863,157 

Louisiana 776,569 

Maine 494,918 

Maryland 766,628 

Missisippi 757,233 

Massachusetts 1,103,361 

Michigan 1,224,841 

Minnesota 575,081 

Missouri 2,387,909 

Montana 162,129 

Nebraska 642,075 

Nevada 35,313 

New Hampshire 230,231 

New Jersey 1,009,909 



^ 



32,438 

42,175 

36,608 

635,970 

981,432 

374,546 

25,873 

45,066 

35,828 

25,677 

75,254 

1,724,489 

350,747 

632,182 

292,077 

124,775 

112,728 

135,188 

191,841 

19,495 

1,170,793 

965,217 

941,315 

518,341 

106,811 

362,353 

20,956 

103,118 

777,859 



18,946 

^46,844 

16,913 

557,319 

126,971 

328,737 

17,421 

24,351 

33,851 

15,081 

40,444 

1,201,928 

159,118 

273,388 

134,719 

40,023 

51,828 

109,911 

104,176 

9,391 

1,050,899 

595,200 

542,857 

228,695 

91,647 

175,883 

18,102 

96,560 

658,159 



O g. 

B B: 

m CO 

2 w 



34.4 
57.5 
47.7 
46.3 
46.6 
39.0 
36.3 
24.0 
46.8 
30.6 
71.6 
45.0 
56.1 
60.5 
59.1 
51.5 
31.4 
64.8 
40.0 
34.5 
35.0 
62.3 
63.5 
50.9 
56.6 
56.8 
66.2 
53.9 
34.3 



26,331 


22.662 


68.5 


3,007,507 


2,729,260 


33.2 


8,855 


5,953 


46.6 


251,256 


156,138 


80.0 


1,024,377 


597,255 


52.5 


94,044 


40,088 


71.8 


135,271 


103.002 


58.7 


1,806,392 


1,438,752 


41.2 


194,646 


178,031 


28.6 


11.138 


6.054 


30.6 


217,478 


100,628 


71.2 


38,367 


18,460 


46.3 


361,926 


240,012 


46.5 


131,527 


63,404 


67.8 


75,055 


49,861 


60.4 


37,943 


26,628 


48.8 


282,529 


241,227 


54.5 


57,638 


57,072 


54.6 


1,044,764 


512,569 


66.4 


32,497 


27,165 


55.2 



97 

New Mexico 255,609 

New York 3,230,154 

North Carolina 1,485,705 

North Dakota 162,461 

Ohio 3,033,275 

Oklahoma 1,310,403 

Oregon 416,851 

Pennsylvania 4,222,616 

Rhode Island 159,821 

South Carolina 661,970 

South Dakota 245,665 

Tennesse 1,654,606 

Texas 2,602,598 

Utah 171,671 

Vermont 229,382 

Virginia 1,325,238 

Washington 585,401 

West Virginia 1,042,107 

Wisconsin 763,224 

Wyoming 80,711 

ABSTRACT OF TABLES NO. 86 AND 94 OF STATISTICAL 
ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Wheat Butter 

Production, Production, 

1911. 1910. 

Alabama 345,000 19,139,321 

Alaska 200 

Arizona 803,394 

Arkansas 1,008,000 21,753,833 

California 8,640.000 34,000,497 

Colorado 8,247,000 6,499,121 

Connecticut 8,480,194 

Delaware 2,599,838 

Florida 1,386,445 

Georgia 1,740,000 15,160,454 

Hawaii 118.871 

Idaho 15,860,000 2,952,886 

Illinois 42,000,000 86,548.762 

Indiana 34,354.000 54,595,879 

Iowa 10,622,000 139,022,552 

Kansas 51,387,000 59,837,255 

Kentucky 9,906,000 30,631.044 

Louisiana 4,918,229 

Maine 20,635,572 



.98 

Maryland 9,378,000 11,638,378 

Massachusetts 9,572,181 

Michigan 18,450,000 67,872,710 

Minnesota 43,943,000 82,363,315 

Mississippi 18,929,761 

Missouri 36,110,000 46,949,726 

Montana 12,299,000 22,488,310 

Nebraska 41,574,000 46,244,839 

Nevada 1,192,925 

New Hampshire 11,419,881 

New Jersey 7,219,882 

New Mexico 1,262,000 313,003 

New York 6,728,000 115,408,222 

North Carolina 6,636,000 16,913,802 

North Dakota 73,200,000 9,642,003 

Ohio 36,240,000 87,638,930 

Oklahoma 8,976,000 8,834,559 

Oregon 16,726,000 10,082,807 

Pennsylvania 17,402,000 111,358,246 

Rhode Island 636,281 

South Carolina 8,150,437 

South Dakota 14,800,000 23,573,077 

Tennessee 8.280,000 29,299,519 

Texas 6,580,000 48,244,206 

Utah 5,025,000 5,331,336 

Vermont 41,288,087 

Virginia 9,000,000 20,076,351 

Washington 50,661,000 10,570,527 

West A''irginia 2,737,000 16,954,129 

Wisconsin 3,097,000 106,552,649 

Wyoming 918,054 

But while it is seen that Scandinavians are 
preeminently agriculturists in America, and 
that they thus contribute wholsomely to the 
stamina of the country by their homeloving, 
thrifty traits, yet it is by no means to be sup- 
posed that the entire economic field in Scandi- 
navian America belongs to the agriculturist. 
Danes and Swedes make good business men. 
Denmark's rising industrialism is evidenced in 



99 

Europe by her increasing participation in manu- 
facture; chemistry and mechanical engineering 
also appeal to the Danes at home. In America 
prominent manufacturies, such as concrete 
steel, lubricators and terra cotta, are either 
owned by Danes, or managed by men of that 
birth. Norway's shipping interests increase 
year by year ; in America both Danes and Nor- 
v/egians are followers of the sea, and Danish 
sailors are found in the shipping ports of the 
Pacific coast where the ship building trades at- 
tract them. In fact, from the lowest grade up 
through varying stages of industrialism Scandi- 
navians are found to be mechanics, carpenters, 
dairy dealers, engineers, real estate and bond 
brokers, manufacturers of utensils, floor cover- 
ings etc., publishers, bankers and importers etc. 
etc. Finally, the Swedish Chamber of Com- 
merce in New York City, established in 1907 
to connect "the commercial, financial and in- 
dustrial interests of Sweden and of the United 
States" is an unique institution which nicely 
instances the importance, the standing and the 
extensiveness of these foreign business interests 
in our country. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Political, Literary and Social Influence of 
Scandinavians in America. 

Scandinavians, more particularly the Nor- 
wegians, have a strong liking for politics ; this 
may be due to a psychic trait, a love for dis- 
cussions, bickerings, strifes and a desire for 
political freedom generally. For many years 
the immigrants from the northern countries of 
Europe were staunch Republicans and party 
loyalty was so strong that any candidate nomi- 
nated by their party would receive all but a 
few dissenting votes. It would appear that 
such loyalty is incompatible with the Scandi- 
navian spirit of independence, yet such has been 
the case throughout the first generation. In 
many rural communities the American poli- 
tician often referred to the Scandinavians as 
his "voting cattle", for by ascertaining who was 
the accepted clan leader and obtaining his sup- 
port, the politician experienced no difficulty in 
securing a following. The Hon. John L. Gibbs, 
in an address delivered- at Ellendale, Minnesota- 

100 



101 

May 17, 1902, said of the political situation and 
the Scandinavians : "You will find that in no 
state in our Union have you received your due. 
Where would the dominant party in the State 
of Illinois have been during the past thirty 
years but for the Scandinavian vote? And 
did you ever hear of a Scandinavian being 
placed on its state ticket until very recently? 
What would have been the result to our state 
of Iowa? You know, and I need not tell you. 
A few years since a Scandinavian was given 
a place on the state ticket and four years ago 
one was elected to Congress. This year there 
is an effort made to leave him at home. I hope 
it will not succeed. In North Dakota the 
Scandinavians outnumber all other classes com- 
bined, and they are not represented in either 
House of Congress. What is the situation in 
this state? We Americans, born of American 
parentage, constitute a little more than one-fifth 
of the population. I think we hold more than 
one-fifth of the offices. Where do you come 
in? The three branches of the Scandinavian 
family, counting those born of Scandinavian 
parentage, far outnumber us. There are four- 
teen elective state officers, counting the mem- 
bers of the Supreme Court. The Scandinavians 
hold one. Of the seven members of Congress 
there is not one Scandinavian. In Wisconsin, 
an effort is being made to defeat the re-elec- 
tion of the lone Scandinavian Congressman, 



102 

and in all the Western States the situation is 
similar to that of Minnesota." 

It has been stated that immigrant races wish 
to conform to the dominant race. This is es- 
pecially true of the northern peoples. It is a 
trait which reveals a racial weakness and which 
is seen in the susceptibility of these people to 
flattery at the hand of their American friends. 
A few complimentary words as to the bravery 
of the Normans and their heroic deeds, will 
bring the desired result. 

However, during recent years this has 
changed, for clanishness and a dislike for the 
American politician is the condition to-day. 
In the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa 
and the Dakotas it is quite a political asset to 
have a name ending in "son". In an article 
under the caption "Minnesota" by George 
Fitch, copyrighted 1912 by the Globe, the 
author humoursly writes as follows : 

"Minnesota is an American state which has 
been borrowed by the Norwegians with great 
success. Owing to its steady and reliable winter 
it has become the favorite lifetime resort for 
this hardy people who raise wheat, white 
whiskers, and American citizens with great 
fluency. Minnesota now has over two million 
people, half of whom have names ending in 
"son". 

Minnesota produces more wheat, iron ore, 
and light haired, blue-eyed statesmen than any 



103 

other commonwealth. It has a state university 
which leads the world in the production of 
Clydesdale halfbacks and has 5,000 students all 
trained to yell 'Ski-U-Mah' in unison when the 
team scores on Michigan. It was born Re- 
publican, but was recently captured by Colonel 
Roosevelt after a hard tussel with neighbor La 
Follette. Besides, Minnesota has contributed 
Ignatius Donnelly, Adam Bede, Knute Nelson, 
James J. Hill, Archbishop Ireland, and other 
interesting citizens to its country, but her great- 
est feat in citizen-producing was John A. John- 
son, who would have mixed up the Democratic 
convention at Baltimore more than ever had he 
lived. Minnesota mourns his death sincerely, 
but has 100,000 more Johnsons in training and 
will yet produce a president of that name." 

As to Scandinavian American views of 
government they are changing from the con- 
servative Republican to the Progressive or even 
Radical. Large numbers are entering the ranks 
of the Socialists. Socialistic political independ- 
ence is apparently a world symptom, it asserts 
itself in Ireland, France, Germany and Scandi- 
navia. Algernon Lee in the January Metro- 
politan, 1912, pictures v/hat he calls Progressive 
Scandinavia thus : 

"Good news for Socialists and Suffragists 
has come from the Scandinavian countries. The 
general election in Norway brought defeat to 
the coalition of Conservatives and so-called 



104 

Liberals which have been in power. Their 
representation is reduced from seventy-eight to 
twenty-four, of that the SociaHsts cast 126,000 
out of a total of 478,000, a gain of 35,000 over 
their previous record. The Danish government 
has introduced a bill which gives women equal 
political rights with men and reduces the voting 
age from thirty to twenty-five. The bill will be 
carried with Socialist and Radical support. 
Iceland, which is a Danish dependency, is also 
to get equal suffrage. 

**At an international conference recently held 
in London, one of the Norwegian delegates, Mr. 
Braekstadt, reported that in his country seventy 
per cent of the women go to the polls; that the 
proportionate strength of the parties has not 
been preceptibly affected by the extension of 
the suffrage to women; but that the female 
voters compel attention to such social questions 
as child welfare and the housing of the people." 
Continuing the discussion of the conditions 
in the United States, we may say that it appears 
that the liberty loving Scandinavian nature is 
beginning to assert itself in the second genera- 
tion. The immigrants were obliged, because of 
their ignorance of American politics, to permit 
leadership at first, as they were trained under 
a strict government and hence had acquired a 
law-abiding nature, forbidding opposition or 
revolt. From voting cattle to socialism is a 
long step, however, and whoever takes it goes 



105 

from one extreme to another extreme, omitting 
the necessary intermediate steps. That the 
Scandinavians to some extent are doing this is 
certain, a fact which may be explained as the 
result of the reaction from the restraint or 
bondage under which they had lived for a con- 
.siderable time. Clanishness was very evident 
during the last ten years, when the Americans 
and others in the north central states experi- 
enced it in every campaign. The success of this 
clanishness was shown in 1894 when the Min- 
nesota legislature had 168 members, of which 
47 were Scandinavian Republicans. Similar 
conditions have continued to prevail, but the 
proportion of Scandinavians increases. Min- 
nesota has had four Scandinavian governors; 
the first being Knut Nelson, now United States 
senator; the second, John Lind, popularly called 
''honest John" ; the third was the late John A. 
Johnson; the fourth and present governor is 
Adolph Eberhardt. Of the four governors 
mentioned two were Republican and two Demo- 
cratic, a circumstance which clearly shows 
independence in politics, since in a state which 
is normally Republican by a majority of 125,000 
votes or more, the selection of two Democratic 
governors is significant. Independence is fur- 
ther seen in the fact that the Farmers' Al- 
liance, the People's party, the Populist party, 
and the recently organized National Progres- 
sive party received very substantial votes in 



106 

Scandinavian territory. It is evident from the 
above recited facts that even if we grant that 
the Scandinavians are, as a whole a one-party 
people, they nevertheless move about from 
party to party, thus exhibiting the same charac- 
teristic that is seen in their Vandrelyst centuries 
ago. 

But while indeed Northern racial traits are 
thus exhibited in the political field, it is to be 
admitted that these phases of national life are 
more particularly characteristic of the Nor- 
wegians and Swedes than of the Danes. 
Patriotism less commonly takes this form of 
expression. The patriotism of military life, 
however, has appealed to all three, the Swede, 
the Norwegian, and the Dane. A brief review 
of the history of the American wars reveals the 
fact that numerous Northmen were among the 
brave soldiers who defended their adopted land 
from the time of the Revolution, when Danes 
were found in command at Bunker Hill, Stony 
Point and other battles, to the latest Spanish- 
American War, which likewise called Scandi- 
navians to the front. When the call came for 
volunteers at the time of the Civil War, they 
responded most willingly, and furnished many 
thousand men to our American army. During 
the Civil War they were found for the most 
part in the northern camps, as they resided in 
that territory almost exclusively. As complete 
details and statistics cannot be given, a few 



107 

figures will be submitted to show Scandinavian 
activity and usefulness in the preservation of 
the Union. 

Martin Ulvestad, in his work entitled 
"Nordmsendene i Amerika" furnishes the follow- 
ing information : Norway has given 3 colonels to 
our American wars; 27 majors; 52 captains; 76 
lieutenants ; 154 sergeants ; 219 corporals and 
4,042 soldiers. One man receiving special 
mention, was Hans C. Heg, born in Norway in 
1829, who emigrated to America in 1840, and 
chose Muskego, Wis., as his place of residence. 
In 1861, the beginning of the Civil War, the 
governor of Wisconsin appointed Mr. Heg as 
the colonel of the 15th Wisconsin Regiment, in 
command of which he was killed in the battle 
of Chickamauga. The United States govern- 
ment has since erected at that place a monument 
in his honor. 

This 15th Wisconsin Regiment (volunteers) 
was one of the ablest regiments in the entire 
army. It is reported that General Howard said 
of this regiment, 'T wish we had a brigade of 
such men.'" It was universally recognized to 
be one of the bravest regiments, for as it was 
ordered from place to place it was always sent 
to the most dangerous borders. The popular 
name of these valiant fighters for the Union 
was "The Scandinavian Regiment." Another 
Scandinavian regiment was the Third Minne- 
sota Volunteer Regiment, which contained the 



108 

splendid Company D, consisting mostly of 
Swedes and commanded by a Swede by the 
name of Col. Hans Mattson. Swedes also 
marched under Captain Arosenius of the Forty- 
third Illinois, as well as in the Fourth and Fifth 
Minnesota, and in several Wisconsin regiments. 
Indeed, the number of Scandinavian soldiers 
enlisted in our wars establishes the fact that 
these people have been a factor in the military 
sphere of our political life. 

The social and cultural influence of the 
Northmen is not as clearly seen as their political 
influence. Their social and cultural contribu- 
tion, although manifesting itself at an early date 
in its native character, has not yet made a 
visible impression upon American life. When 
arriving in this country Scandinavians were 
obliged to utilize all their time and efforts to 
establish a home. For this reason little time 
was left for sociability which was mostly 
limited to a narrow circle of fellow immigrants. 
The difficult conditions under which these 
people had to develope prohibited any great 
activities beyond their daily endeavors to obtain 
a living. For this reason literature, mostly de- 
scriptive of American conditions, began to ap- 
pear about 1838. The Scandinavians have al- 
ways recognized that the production of Scandi- 
navian literature in America has been at a mini- 
mum. The ability to break ground and improve 
the wild prairies, to "grub" in our woods and 



109 

to write books is not to be found in the same 
man. A further fact may be added which ex- 
plains the limited supply of literature. The im- 
migrants belonged largely to the laboring class, 
and as a consequence, only a very few had any 
higher education. 

The literature, on the whole, has been 
characterized by bureaucracy, consisting in the 
production of collective efforts ; editing and 
journalism, the writing of histories, biographies 
and records of achievement have occupied the 
attention of many of the Scandinavian literary 
men in America. Together with the poets, es- 
sayists and novelists, these writers have written 
almost exclusively in the national languages for 
the three respective Scandinavian peoples. 
Their influence upon the American public is 
correspondingly limited to those American 
readers who can read these languages, or else 
it depends upon the translation possibilities 
which the works possess. But while these 
writers suffer disadvantages from representing 
a transition period between European and 
American artistic circles, they nevertheless 
valuably bring out the characterizing points of 
this transition period — reflecting European 
movements of thought and feeling, while at the 
same time picturing American environment. 
Certain of the poets recreate European home 
settings, as the shepherd life in the poetry of 
Eskesen recalls the poet's boyhood in Denmark, 



no 

and certain novelists, Valdemar Ager, Carl 
Hansen, Knut Pedersen (Knut Hamsun), Chri- 
stian Oestergaard and Peer Str^mme reflect the 
color, the warp and woof of Scandinavian life 
in America. Many another strain of national 
flavor or interesting personality is found in the 
poetry of Adam Dan, Ivar Kirkegaard, Arthur 
Peterson, William Petersen, Eduard Sundell, 
Wilhelm Sundel^f, and John Volk, while over 
against this picturesqueness of background we 
have the sterner writings of the historians, the 
biographers and the scientists. Among others, 
Prof. R. B. Anderson has contributed to phases 
of Northern history, J. W. Arctander to the 
realm of the law, A. Asperheim to scientific evo- 
lutionary discussions, and O. M. Nordlie and 
O. N. Nelson have presented contributions to 
the spheres of literary study and historical re- 
search. Further, the names of Hovgaard, 
Busck and Heidemann, in still widely differing 
scientific circles, suggest many fields of activity 
which impinge more or less directly upon pure 
literary production. When in addition to the 
activity of all these writers, many of whom pro- 
duce in English, we recognize the distinctively 
American achievements of writers of Scandi- 
navian birth who compose solely in the English 
language, we find a steadily increasing influence 
which is being made by Scandinavians upon 
American literature. 

In the Scandinavian journalistic field we 



Ill 

have quite a large numbers of papers with a 
corresponding number of editors, many of 
whom stand prominently before the public 
mind but of whom it is impossible to write fully 
here. Nordlyset was the first Scandinavian 
paper to be issued in America, beginning in 
1847, while Swedish Hemlandet, established 
about 50 years ago and now published in 
Chicago, and Bikuhen, established in 1871 and 
published for the Danes in Salt Lake City, are 
likewise pioneer organs of the press. From 
1847 up to 1907, 234 papers have been started. 
Among the 82 which are now in existence the 
Swedish Nordstjernan, published in New York 
City, deserves mention as one of the oldest, 
while the Danish Bien, published in San Fran- 
cisco, B0rnevennen and Dannevirkc, published 
in Iowa, Chicago-Posten in Illinois, and Uge- 
hladet, published in Minneapolis, date from 
about 1880 ; and the old Norwegian paper 
Decorah-Posten dates from 1874. Radicalism 
— the mention of which in passing recalls the 
old era of Kansas communistic attempts of 
Pio and Geleff — is to-day represented by Den 
Danske Pioneer, a paper which owing to its 
European circulation occupies a unique position 
connecting the two countries. One of the 
Scandinavian papers which exercises political 
influence is Skandinaven which was started in 
1866 by John Andersen. Its stand is taken in 
favor of the Republican party, a fact which is 



112 

significant of the press as a rule. It has been 
stated that, generally speaking, Scandinavians 
were Republicans, and while their papers are 
usually published in the interest of news, it 
is true that a certain number do participate in 
the discussion of political issues. Further, the 
fact that the majority of papers are Republican 
explains and is in turn explained by the circum- 
stance that many Scandinavians are Republican. 
Finally, the press includes a large percentage 
of religious publications. But it is neither in 
the variety of newspaper publications, nor in 
the kind of news sheets published, nor in the 
extent of circulation and the age of these news- 
papers that we recognize the most distinctive 
feature of the Scandinavian-American press. 
The most distinctive feature is the personality 
behind all these manifestations ; it is the per- 
sonality ably exerted by editors and stafifs pos- 
sessing comprehensive talents and broad sym- 
pathies, reinforced by the collective personality 
of all the reading public. This bond of mutual 
personality, reflected on one side by the forceful 
contacts which the newspaper makes among its 
subscribers by urging thinking in one way or 
another, applauding or condemning public ac- 
tion of one sort or another, and reflected, -on 
the other hand, by the individualized and social- 
ized allegiance of the adherents of every news- 
paper set, that most strongly marks the signi- 
ficance of the Scandinavian-American press, 



113 

qualifying it to rank with the church and the 
university as the three most influential factors 
in Scandinavian-American life. 

Having thus discussed the political and 
literary phases of Scandinavian influence in 
America, we come to the social contribution, 
and we recognize as one of the most important 
means through which the Scandinavians have 
sought to make good citizens for their adopted 
land, as well as to conserve their nationality 
and to preserve the traditions of their church, 
is their educational system. The Scandinavians 
rank high in educational privileges, the illiteracy 
being less than one per cent. Nearly all schools 
are religious or church schools, or else have 
sprung from religious sources, as for instance, 
the Danish Gruntvigian high schools, and one 
of the chief aims of the schools and colleges is 
to train men for the ministry. This they insist 
depends upon putting first things first; i. e. as 
Pastor Singmaster, in the United Lutheran, vol. 
6, No. 3, says : "The body must not be neg- 
lected, but it must not be permitted to absorb 
the greatest share of attention. In our church 
college there must be harmonious development 
of the whole man. This harmonious develop- 
ment will, probably, demand the first place for 
the spiritual, the second for the intellectual, and 
third for the material. No young man or 
woman should be permitted to go from the 
college without being a Christian, if it is at all 



114 

possible to make them such." It is a contention 
of the Scandinavian Lutheran Church that the 
state and the church needs men and women who 
have a right heart and right spirit. There is no 
greater need for us as a nation with a great 
destiny, than to have citizens whose hearts and 
lives are touched with fire from the sacred 
altar of God himself. The training and the 
education of million of boys and girls in the 
love and fear of God is considered the basic 
question, the trusts and the tariff are secondary. 
United Lutheran, vol. 5, No. 39, p. 616, "The 
moment you dethrone God in the mind of the 
child and teach it that there is no God whom it 
must fear, love and trust above all things ; the 
moment you teach a child and the youth that 
the universe is run by a Nondescript Force or 
Energy, and the source and all known is not a 
personal God but an original cell or a proto- 
plasm or nebula, out of which all things have 
evolved and developed, that moment you are 
doing the work of an anarchist ; you are trying 
to blow up not only the church but the state 
as well." Scandinavians and Americans alike 
join in this recognition of the guiding power of 
religion in matters of statecraft and the making 
of citizens. "Leading and thinking Americans 
rejoice in every school, great or small, which 
instils religion pure and undefiled." 

Scandinavians attempt to make their schools 
'ittractive. Professors are employed during the 



115 

summer vacations to travel and plead the cause 
of the schools throughout the communities. 
Liberal support is strongly urged, endowment 
funds are eagerly welcomed and every attempt 
is made to place the schools on a sound finan- 
cial basis. This sound financial basis is co- 
incident with the system of charging low rates. 
The estimated cost for a school year is very 
low. It is common to judge the quality of an 
article by the price paid for it. If the quality 
of the schools is based upon the estimated cost, 
we should not hope to find the Scandinavian 
schools in the first class. The cost for a school 
year in the Norwegian schools varies from 
$250.00 to $500.00 but this sum does not cover 
the actual expense for the maintenance of a 
school or a college. The deficit is covered by 
an appropriation from the church organization 
to which the school may belong, or if the school 
does not belong to a church organization, the 
deficit is provided for by special contributions. 
The combined two sources, however, the re- 
ceipts from students and the appropriations, are 
generally reduced to a minimum, which imposes 
hardships upon the various institutions ; this 
being true, the equipments are often far from 
complete, as it is necessary to economize on 
the outlay; also the teachers are engaged at the 
lowest possible salary. As a man's charity 
cannot continue to sacrifice the necessaries of 
life for any length of time, the result is that 



116 

frequent changes occur in the faculty, for only 
a very few instructors are sufficiently paid to 
continue at their posts. Another feature is the 
selection of teachers, that is, teaching qualifica- 
tions are often sacrificed for other qualities 
which, in the opinion of a Lay Board, may be 
more necessary. For this reason there are not 
many experts in the various departments of 
the colleges. Further, a handicap to the in- 
structor is the fact that he may be obliged to 
teach in two or more separate departments. But 
during the last ten years the Scandinavian col- 
leges have made great progress, for the second 
generation, which has been trained in the 
American colleges and universities, often ret- 
urns to the church schools, advocating Ameri- 
can university methods. Another decade will 
surely further enhance the efficiency of the 
whole school system. 

On next page is found a table giving the year 
of founding and a summary of statistics of the 
various schools for the year 1912, of Norwegian 
Lutheran Listitutions, as prepared by Rev. O. 
M. Nordlie. 



117 

NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN EDUCATIONAL 
INSTITUTIONS. 



o 



United Church Seminary 1893 

Luther Seminary 1876 

Red Wing Seminary 1879 

Augsburg Seminary 1869 

Wahpeton Bible School 1903 

Total 

Normal Schools. 

Madison Lutheran Normal 1892 

Sioux Falls Luth. Normal 1889 

Total ..ZZ. 

Colleges. 

St. Olaf College 1886 

Augustana College 1860 

Concordia College 1891 

Spokane College 1907 

Luther College 1861 

Park Region Luth. College 1892 

Red Wing Ladies' Seminary.... 1894 

Red Wing Seminary 1879 

Augsburg Seminary 1869 

Total 

Academies. 

Augustana College 1860 

Camrose College 1911 

Columbia College 1909 

Concordia College 1891 

Pleasant View Luth. College .... 1896 

St. Olaf Coll. Academy 1874 



330 

437 

? 

372 



1139 



274 
250 



1239 



328 

24 
315 
313 
557 



O 



? 


s- 


SO 




p 


on 




Pi 






fi 


M 




p 


(O 




OB 







19 

21 

9 



87 
53 
28 
29 



57 197 



32 153 
14 202 



77 506 



37 208 



? 

6 
20 
16 
41 



91 

86 
280 
104 
258 



10 
5 
3 
4 



22 



8 
10 



524 


46 


355 


18 


393 


43 


261 


32 


2 


.... 


8 


.... 


? 


? 


? 




615 


12 


107 


18 


3 


3 


25 





2 




9 


.... 


? 


10 


43 


11 


224 


9 


53 


11 



72 



11 

? 

10 

16 

6 



118 



Scandinavia Academy 1890 276 18 103 6 

Spokane College 1907 ? ? ? 18 

Waldorf College 1903 237 37 291 11 

Bruflat Academy 1889 112 21 95 5 

Clifton Luth. College 1896 24 7 82 5 

Gale College 1901 143 19 78 6 

Luther Academy 1888 ? ? ? 7 

Luther College Academy 1861 ? 10 107 

Northwestern College 1910 1 1 56 3 

Pacific Lutheran Academy 1894 160 14 176 8 

Park Region Luth. College 1892 300 24 178 15 

Preus Academy 1901 107 7 60 6 

Red Wing Ladies' Seminary .... 1894 286 40 157 24 

Willmar Seminary 1882 400 23 165 6 

Wittenberg Academy 1901 145 15 124 5 

Jewell College 1893 174 16 178 12 

Red Wing Seminary 1879 ? 13 69 

Augsburg Seminary 1869 367 9 81 

Bethania College 1904 30 6 87 8 

Oak Grove Ladies' Seminary.... 1896 32 9 90 7 

Wahpeton Bible School 1903 24 6 58 4 

Total 4355 415 3262 199 

United Church Schools (11) 3049 269 1930 128 

Norwegian Synod Schools (14) 2985 231 1674 123 

Hauges Synod Schools (2) 174 48 318 26 

Free Church Schools (3) 1025 41 340 30 

Eielsen Synod Schools (0) 

Brethren Synod Schools (1) 24 6 58 4 

Total 7257 595 4320 311 



A list of the higher educational institutions 
of the Swedish Augustana Synod embraces 
Augustana College and Theological Seminary, 
Gustavus Adolphus, Bethany, Luther, Upsala, 
Northwestern, Minnesota, Trinity, Coeur d'- 
Alene, North Star Colleges, and the Canada 
Conference School, institutions which number 
a student roll of over 3,000 members, and of 



119 

which the date of founding likewise goes back 
to the go's. Danish institutions also include 
schools, theological seminaries and colleges ; the 
most important among the last named are 
Grand View College, at Des Moines, Iowa, and 
Dana College at Blair, Nebraska; but, on the 
whole, their number is significantly smaller than 
either the Swedish or Norwegian educational 
institutions. 

The Scandinavians in addition to their 
schools have a large number of charitable in- 
stitutions, which are usually under the control 
of their various church bodies, it being the 
desire of these people to administer to their 
members both in body and soul. The following 
statistical reports of the Norwegian Lutheran 
and Swedish Augustana Synod benevolent insti- 
tutions show the scope of the charitable and 
philanthropic work undertaken by the churches, 
particularly the Norwegian and Swedish 
churches. Hospitals, orphanages, deaconess 
homes, rescue shelters, slum missions, homes 
for the aged and the immigrants are embraced 
An these activities. 



120 



NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS. 

1912. 



O 



Institutions. 



Deaconess Homes. 



Chicago, 111 1879 

Minneapolis, Minn 1890 

Brooklyn, N. Y 1884 

Hospitals. 

Deaconess, Chicago, 111. 1897 

St. John's, Sioux City 

St. Olaf, Austin, Minn... 1896 

Bethesda, Crookston .... 1898 

St. Luke's, Fergus Falls 1903 

Heron Lake, Minn 1903 

Ebenezer, Madison 1902 

Deaconess, Minneapolis 1890 

Thomas, Minneapolis .... 1907 

Luther, St. Paul 1902 

Deaconess, Brooklyn .... 1884 

St. Luke's, Fargo 1905 

Deaconess, Grafton 1903 

Deaconess, Grand Forks 1891 

Deaconess, Northwood .... 1902 

Good Samaritan, Rugby 1910 

Lutheran, Sioux Falls 

Luther, Eau Claire 1907 

Lutheran, La Crosse .... 1902 



hd 



23 


51 


10 


75 




9 


28 


2 


16 




18 


13 


5 


36 




23 


51 
11 


10 


75 


1605 
377 




7 


3 




327 


2 


10 


2 


6 


247 


1 


14 


6 


11 


400 




12 


5 




1000 


1 


6 






426 


9 


28 
11 


2 


16 


1354 
214 




16 


4 


33 


729 


18 


13 


5 


36 


1425 


3 


25 


6 


16 


776 


1 


? 


? 


? 


523 


1 


5 
10 


5 


10 


411 
383 




16 


7 


40 


550 


2 


20 


4 


10 


646 




35 


7 


43 


2670 



Orphanages. 



Year No. 

Opened. Inmates. 

Norwegian Lutheran, Chicago, 111 1891 

Ev. Luth. Receiving Home, Chicago 1905 

Beloit, Iowa 1890 164 

Lake Park, Minn 1895 102 

Wild Rice, Twin Valley, Minn 1891 

Bethesda, Willmar, Minn 1898 50 

Bethesda, Beresford, S. D 1896 51 



121 

Parkland, Wash 1900 

Martha & Maria, Poulsbo, Wash 1892 

M. Luther, Stoughton, Wis 1889 

Homme, Wittenberg Wis 1880 77 

Brevig, Port Clarence, Alaska 1900 

Homes for the Aged. 

Norw. Old People's, Chicago, 111 1896 

Bethesda, Willmar, Minn 1905 15 

Northwood, N. D 1910 11 

Poulsbo, Wash 

Josephine, Stanwood, Wash 

Stoughton, Wis 1889 

Homme, Wittenberg, Wis 1880 42 

Luth. Hospice, Minneapolis, Minn r9D7 

Rescue Shelters. 
Martha Maria Mission Home, St. Paul 1907 

Slum Missions. 
Brooklyn, N. Y 

Immigrant & Seamen's Missions. 

Brooklyn, N. Y 1890 

New York, N. Y 1905 

New York, N. Y .—.... 1866 

Galveston, Texas 1911 

City Missions. 

Chicago, 111 

Chicago, 111 

Minneapolis, Minn 

St. Paul, Minn 

St. Paul, Minn 



INSTITUTIONS OF THE AUGUSTANA SYNOD, 1914. 

Orphans' Homes. 

Value of 

Institution and Location. Property. Orphans. 

Vasa, Vasa, Minn $30,000 63 

Swedish Lutheran, Andover, 111 78,600 62 

Sw. Ev. Lutheran, Mariadahl, Kas 45,000 33 

Sw. Ev. Lutheran, Stanton, Iowa 50,670 42 

Gustavus Adolphus, Jamestown, N. Y 43,239 75 

Sw. Ev. Lutheran, Jolit, 111 43,700 102 

Bethlehems, Omaha, Nebr 20 



122 

Lutheran, Avon, Mass 37,375 47 

Nebraska Conference, Stromsburg, Nebr. 16,000 6 

Deaconess Motherhouses. 

Immanuel, Omaha, Nebr 172,400 48 

Bethesda, St. Paul, Minn 20,000 27 

Immigrant Homes. 

Swedish Lutheran, New York, N. Y 86,993 

Immigrant and Seamen's Home, Boston 26,737 

Hospitals. 

Bethesda, St. Paul, Minn 180,000 1800 

Augustana, Chicago, 111 250,000 2706 

Immanuel, Omaha, Nebr 909 

Iowa Lutheran, Des Moines, Iowa 125,000 

Swedish, Kansas City, Mo 60,000 930 

Homes for the Aged. 

Nazareth, Omaha, Nebr 24 

Bethesda, Chisago City, Minn 10,000 13 

Old People's Home, Madrid, Iowa 17,833 22 

Salem, Joliet, 111 56,266 42 

Augustana, Brooklyn, N. Y 27,651 19 

Old People's Home, Lindsborg, Kans 18,000 16 

Augustana, Chicago, 111 39,500 13 

As can be seen from the lists, these are 
substantial social contributions. The work of 
organizing homes, hospitals and shelters on a 
church basis makes for social security, and it 
is in this way that the Scandinavians have 
contributed most markedly to American social 
welfare. Not that hospitals, homes etc., organ- 
ized on any other basis are less productive of 
good: among the Danes, although for the most 
part, the Danish Evangelical Lutheran and the 
United Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church 
support schools, missions, and shelters, never- 
theless brotherhoods or associations, in many 



123 

instances, undertake the support of institutions 
such as homes for the aged, etc. But, on the 
whole, the securely organized basis which the 
church gives to Scandinavian social institutions 
in America is one of the strongest assets of 
Scandinavian-American citizenship. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Significance of the Scandinavian Church. 

Scandinavian influence in America cannot 
be considered separate from the divine^ jurisdic- 
tion of the church. As no mention could be 
made of Scandinavian accomplishrhent without 
referring to the achievements which have ori- 
ginated under the control of the church, so no 
interpretation of the spiritual fibre of Scandi- 
navian-American life is complete without a 
thorough understanding and appreciation of the 
Scandinavian-American religious spirit. Be- 
cause this religious spirit is much more than a 
dogma, because it is an analysis of the national 
mind, because in the realm of -religion there 
are disclosed manifestations of movements of 
thought and feeling, and finally because the re- 
ligious impulse has often been the prime cause 
of achievement in other directions, the sphere 
of Scandinavian religious activity takes on con- 
siderable significance. Under this religious 
aspect not only do we detect reflections of old 
heritages, familiar Viking traits of loyalty and 

124 



125 

austerity, pagan characteristics of mysticism 
and wonderment, and historic quaHties of mis- 
sionary zeal and reHgious fanaticism, but also 
the appearance and the disruption of periods 
of mental and spiritual awakening, the inau- 
guration of newer ideas and ideals and, finally, 
a faithful portrayal of the strivings, the attain- 
ments and the defeats in the ordinary repre- 
sentative life of the people. 

Because of the fundamental character of 
this religious aspect of the northern people, na- 
tional temperament can be analysed in the light 
of devotional tendencies. To go far back to 
the roots of the racial character is to stand per- 
haps with pagan Swedes, who in the early days 
worshipped at Uppsala, Freyr, the god of light; 
to hear the wailing of the rhythmic chants is 
to descry in them the poetry and the symbolism 
of old northern mystical beliefs and to realize 
the inherent striving in man, because his hopes 
go beyond himself and his limitations teach de- 
pendence, to have a god at all costs. That 
various gods resolved into one God with the 
advent of Christianity was natural ; further 
that Christianity came with travail to Scandi- 
navia was to be expected from a people inclined 
by natural disposition to cling to an already 
established faith. This very tenacity of pagan 
belief yielding hard to the advancement of 
Christianity marked that age with such tales of 
devastation as are told of Gorm the Old driving 



126 

all the priests out of the country and harassing 
the missionary-ridden, neighboring German 
coast, of King Inge, refusing to relapse from 
Christianity, being stoned from an assemblage 
of the people at Uppsala, of King Haco the 
Good being compelled to participate in heathen 
sacrifices and making the sign of the cross in 
fear and trembling over the sacrificial bowl. 
All of which tales, as well as numerous accounts 
of forceful baptism and petitionary pilgrimages 
to Rome to counteract pagan influence, show 
to what extent the prevailing religion permeated 
the national mind. 

This very quality of dogged persistence in 
devotion to a fixed ideal was instanced again, 
but this time in favor of the advancing form of 
religion, that is, Protestanism which, in the 
Catholic versus Protestant struggle of the Re- 
formation crisis, gained the allegiance of 
Scandinavia. In Protestantism, rather the Lu- 
theran version of it, Scandinavia found her be- 
fitting doctrinal belief. In addition to being 
distinctly Teutonic in its democratic denial of 
the power of the pope, the substance of Lu- 
theran doctrine instances other Northern char- 
acteristics — a tendency to judge things by 
their fundamental, intrinsic worth, a soul- 
searching thoroughness of disposition, and an 
absolute dependence upon the power of faith. 
Faith and personal subjectivity even go so far 
as to define the limits of the spiritual state in 



127 

the total depravity of sin offset by the bliss of 
eternal life. This idealistic capacity to become 
terrorized on account of sin, to abnegate the 
ego and fix concentrated being upon the Divine 
is a marked trait of northern religious belief. 
All is fearfully stern, questioning and exhort- 
ing, there is none of the dolce far niente of the 
Oriental beliefs — Protestantism, Northernism, 
Teutonism represent the very opposite extreme. 
That this national character has manifested 
itself in history has been seen. Religious zeal 
was demonstrated in the missionary tours of 
Hans Egede to Greenland, and in the crusading 
battles of the Christians under the walls of 
Antioch. After the adventurous days, as we 
have seen, there came the era of differentiating 
faiths when Quakerism appeared in Norway 
and other sects such as the Methodists and Mis- 
sion Friends in Sweden. The same democratic 
characteristic which had made Protestantism 
possible resulted in tolerance of other sects, but 
never to the exclusion of Lutheranism ; that al- 
ways has been and will continue to remain the 
only authoratative national form of belief. Up- 
held by the state, powerful because of numbers 
and impressive because of its long standing 
sway, the church may at times, perhaps, have 
laid itself open to the charge of too much 
formalism and rationalism. That such was the 
case in Denmark in the nineteenth century is 
proven by the sudden prevalence of Gruntvigian 



128 

doctrine. Nevertheless, the established church 
both at home and abroad suffered no whit in 
decrease of esteem, in power and in stability. 
While in America Swedish Baptists, Methodists 
and Mission Friends increased in numbers to 
some extent, and other doctrinal paths were 
sought by Scandinavians here and there to per- 
haps a greater extent than in the home country, 
the great body of the people has been and is 
today embraced in the Lutheran church under 
the names of the Swedish Lutheran Augustana 
Synod, the Danish Evangelical Lutheran 
Church and the United Danish Evangelical Lu- 
theran Church, and the Norwegian Church 
composed of the Norwegian Synod, the United 
Norwegian Lutheran Church, the Hauge Synod, 
the Lutheran Free Church, and several others. 
Springing from state churches in Scandi- 
navia, the American churches felt at first a 
spirit of dependence upon the mother church. 
Ministers were accustomed to being trained and 
ordained in Europe and to being sent to the 
United States to take up the care of provincial 
churches. This could not last, however. One 
example of dissatisfaction is shown as early as 
the colonial days of the Swedes on the Dela- 
ware. After the occupation of the Swedish 
colony by the Dutch in 1655 when requests for 
pastors were sent to the Lutheran consistory 
in Holland, the requests remained unanswered. 
Whereupon the colonists were in despair as to 



129 

what to do for the nourishment of their spiri- 
tual life, for they possessed nothing but a few 
Bibles and books of devotion, which because of 
rough usage had become badly worn. At last, 
when their spiritual need had reached its 
climax, they were providentially enabled to 
bring a letter to the personal attention of King 
Charles XI of Sweden. In this letter they 
begged for pastors, Bibles, books of sermons, 
devotions, hymns and catechisms. Being im- 
pressed, the king did send a ship carrying 
pastors and a sufficient supply of books for the 
Swedes who so anxiously awaited them. Thus 
precedent established, the custom of sending 
supplies continued for a time, but the develop- 
ment of congregational life in America was 
hampered, however, by the fact that all the 
pastors sent from Sweden remained under the 
spiritual jurisdiction of the king, who through 
his archbishop appointed them to their posts 
and recalled them again. Thus the men who 
were best qualified to preach were often obliged 
to return home after they had just begun to 
obtain a thorough grasp of their work, and had 
mastered the English language, a knowledge of 
which had become more and more essential. 
The recall of Wrangel, one of the most noted 
of the early churchmen, produced bad feeling. 
The congregations insisted on greater independ- 
ence from the authorities of the fatherland, and 
emphasized the necessity of having English- 



130 

speaking pastors. When the Swedish crown 
thereupon ceased to send them pastors they saw 
no other way to obtain spiritual leaders but to 
seek them from the Episcopalians in America, 
with whom they already stood on friendly 
terms. Thus was instanced a case of disrup- 
tion which later came to be more pronounced 
between the American churches and the father- 
land. The breach naturally widened as the 
years passed, but in this very disruption, seem- 
ingly so at variance with church unity, there yet 
appeared forerunners of greater phenomena of 
development, namely, the origin of the need for 
Swedish, Norwegian and Danish theological 
seminaries, schools which were eventually to 
prove one of the most powerful features of 
Scandinavian influence in America. To meet 
the need for pastors specially trained for the 
service of the church in America, theological 
seminaries were demanded ; the mother coun- 
tries were too far away, and borrowing methods 
were proving inadequate. A few years after 
the Norwegians had been profiting by the use 
of the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod 
Theological School, Peter Laurentius Larsen, 
in taking up the presidency of one of the higher 
schools, developed it from a diminutive Wiscon- 
sin parsonage school into one of the educational 
centers of the Scandinavian west. Luther 
Seminary, a purely theological school, followed 
in the course of development, and the move- 



131 

ment towards higher education once founded, 
spread rapidly till to-day, besides each one of 
the Scandinavian nations possessing at least one 
or two distinctively national seats of learning, 
there are national theological departments be- 
longing to the various religious sects in a num- 
ber of the American colleges of the Middle 
West. 

Nor is it to be supposed that those early 
days proved sinecure days for the pioneers In 
education and church work. Conditions were 
hard and obdurate; pastors felt the strain of 
the immense distances which were necessary to 
be covered, for often in the very beginning the 
work partook of the nature of missionary 
labor. It was not until later that regular 
charges were put into the hands of the pastors, 
and much commendation must be placed to the 
account of many unnamed workers, as well as 
to the credit of those certain few who stand 
out as the iniators of the various Scandinavian 
sects such as Nielsen, Eielsen, Diedrichsen and 
Clausen, Hedstrom, Petersen and Esbjjz^rn. 
Hardships characterized a living which centered 
about the little clap-boarded meeting houses 
standing at the outposts of civilization in the 
pioneering days. Compact, squat little build- 
ings with their tiny door-step and rectangular 
windows, these diminutive quarters stood for 
much more stirring courage and, at times, for 
disheartening failure than any of the splendid 



132 

edifices which now decorate the streets of many 
a northwestern municipality, for to them came 
the farmer, ingenous, simple-hearted and aspir- 
ing. To him the church building stood for 
something more than a place of worship, it was 
the social center, the common ground for in- 
tellectual communion, for companionship and 
individual expression of mutual appreciation. 
It stood as the emblem of his inner life, it held 
the record of his birth, his confirmation, his 
marriage perhaps, and its beneficient influence 
blessed the nearby graves of friends and rela- 
tions. Thus did the church exert its influence 
in our "wilds", and there faithful Lutheran 
pastors have expended their labors, sometimes 
even to the sacrifice of life itself, helping their 
parishioners in things spiritual and temporal. 
Largely agriculturists as were these parishion- 
ers, the trend of Scandinavian religion has been 
mostly to the land, with the result that "our 
country churches" are found wherever the 
Scandinavians have settled. On a Sunday 
morning the sight of these country churches at 
the cross roads bears striking witness to the 
appeal which the church makes to the social 
nucleus of its congregation. Social need 
liberated from the monotony of rural life 
eagerly meets the contact which is given by 
young peoples' societies, choirs, sewing circles 
and social gatherings. Like a huge parent the 
pastor fosters them all. A particularly inti- 



133 

mate contact is the relationship which many of 
the smaller Danish churches are able to keep up 
with the young people of the congregation. In 
the Danish Evangelical Lutheran church some 
congregations support teachers who give re- 
ligious and secular instruction every day, others 
give instruction only on Sunday and to this the 
pastor, assisted by his wife and growing chil- 
dren perhaps, administers paternal care. In 
the rear of a little church warmed it may be by 
a large stove, the children sit on benches and 
carefully drone their Danish responses to the 
strains of a tiny organ. 

That the responses should be in Danish, or 
Swedish or Norwegian, as the case might be, 
has to a great extent been taken for granted. 
Americanization, however, has begun to become 
evident. The question now arises as to whether 
the churches should use English or Danish, 
Swedish, Norwegian in their religious services. 
The older people, largely the immigrants, fa- 
voring their mother tongue, fail to understand 
why their children should prefer English, in 
its turn really the children's mother tongue. 
Many discussions taking place on this theme 
have robbed the church of harmony, and as 
transitions are always difficult, so the church 
experiences in this crisis no little embarrass- 
ment in deciding what is best to be done, to 
take away the "Bread of Life" from those who 
can only receive it in the Scandinavian Ian- 



134 

guages, or, on the other hand, to withhold it 
from those who can only receive it in the 
English tongue. Thus bound by a dilemna, the 
church faces a compromise of a twofold lan- 
guage or else the loss of a certain number of 
its congregation with one or the other extreme 
decision. 

But in thus facing a dilemma the church is 
not at a loss for precedent. Strifes and bicker- 
ings have more than once occurred in the span 
of the years. During the Civil . War public 
opinion in the church was rent over the justili- 
cation or condemnation of slavery; matters of 
doctrine, lay preaching etc. have stirred up con- 
troversies, at various times. The inroads made 
by radicalism in the Scandinavian church in 
Europe is such a case in point, but this is an 
instance which less poignantly concerns the 
daughter church on American soil as the latter 
has been comparatively uninfluenced by the 
modern wave of radicalism, and has continued 
in the original conservative spirit of her 
founders. The Scandinavian-American church 
has stood comparatively unaltered during its 
history in the New World, and especially during 
the last sixty years has resisted the onslaught 
of the so-called higher critics : in its opinion the 
"way unto salvation" is the same for this 
generation as it was for their grandparents. 
Pastors and teachers proclaim the old gospel 
truths applied to modern conditions, but they 



135 

insist the eternal truth must not be sacrificed 
for mere notions of form and externality. 

True as it is that there have been schisms 
and disagreements, nevertheless to an unpre- 
judiced eye the sweep of the entire church 
movement in America seems to have been com- 
parativly unhampered by obstacles. The long 
list of churchly activities, the various means 
taken through which to transmit doctrine to 
posterity, and the standing and esteem which 
the church enjoys in community life in America, 
all seem to point to the church as the living 
soul of an impelling movement of social 
progress. From the days of 1844 when with 
only 12,000 of their countrymen in the United 
States, the Norwegians possessed a national 
church, till to-day when there are over eight 
million Scandinavians possessing between four 
and five thousand churches, is a long step which 
bespeaks much progress. That a great number 
of Scandinavians in this country to-day belong 
to no church organization, further, that a great 
number of church members belong to other 
sects than the Lutheran, does not, however, de- 
tract from the significance which the church, 
and particularly the Lutheran, being disposi- 
tionally an essentially Scandinavian church, 
embodies as a Scandinavian-American social 
force. Being in a great sense "the carrier and 
promoter of culture and the best equipped for 
effective and sustained work" it typifies a de- 



136 

finite contribution. We have seen the effect 
which the church exerts in benevolent, institu- 
tional and educational ways, we have acknow- 
ledged that just as effective social forces have 
been energized outside of the church, and now, 
while admitting that Scandinavian Methodists, 
Baptists, Mission Friends etc. are equally pro- 
ductive under the wing of their respective 
church organizations, we wish to show that of 
all the church bodies the Lutheran holds by 
virtue of numbers and weight of influence the 
standing place among Scandinavians. The 
following table which is taken from the statis 
tical summary of the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in America gives an idea of the extent 
of Scandinavian Lutheranism. 



SUMMARY OF THE STATISTICS OF THE EVANGELICAL 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 



Church Organizations. 



O e 



125 

CO 

a 



Name of Synod. 

G-eneral Council. 
(1) Augustana Synod 



Independent Synods. 

(2) Eielson's Synod 1846 

(3) Hauge's Norw. Synod 1846 

(4) Norwegian Synod 1853 



1860 13 657 1167 






6 


26 





10 


169 


364 


— -. 


5 


410 


1048 


21 



137 



(5) Danish Luth. Church 1871 



9 



65 



107 



(6) United Danish Luth. Church.... 1896 8 126 217 .... 

(7) United Norw. Luth. Church.... 1890 48 589 1570 30 

(8) Luth. Free Church (Norw.).... 1897 14 172 371 12 



Total 



107 2194 4870 63 



Membership. 



(2) 
(3) 
(4) 
(5) 
(6) 



\J3 



o 



w Si 

'^ 2, 

(3 



Finances. 



tel 



1,500 

60,000 

162,287 

20,519 

21,249 



1,100 

40,000 

966,005 

13,098 

13,031 



12,900 

650,000 

1,843,000 

523,079 

794,050 



(7) 276,596 165,906 2,250,000 

(8) 38,000 23,000 1,350,000 



(1) 265,052 176,540 10,309,243 1,650,027 



71,836 

439,290 
300,000 



W 



Tot. 845,203 1,398,680 17,732,272 2,461,153 



318,272.00 

600.00 

50,000.00 

159,118.11 

5,733.00 

22,872.92 

147,720.91 

95,000.00 

799,316,83 



Of the entire number of Lutherans in the 
United States in 1914, 23 per cent were Scandi- 
navians : included in the three national grqups, 
the Swedish Synod possessed 265,052, the Nor- 
wegian Lutheran Church 538,383, and the 
Danish Lutheran 41,768 of the 3,620,621 Lu- 
therans in the United States. The number of 
ordained ministers for the three countries were 
respectively 657, 1,346 and 191, while the value 
of church property equaled a total of $17,732,- 
272, or respectively $10,309,243, $6,105,900 



138 

and $1,317,129 as can be seen from the table. 
Further, in addition to all this, the church ex- 
ercises a still wider field of influence, that is 
through its missions and the circulation of the 
press. Besides each church sect having its own 
official organ, as for instance, Danskeren and 
Kirkelig Samler serving as organs for the Dan- 
ish churches, Evangelisk Luthersk Kirketidende 
and Lutheraneren for the Norwegian Lutheran, 
and Den Christelige Talsmand for the Swedish 
Methodist, there are large, influential book con- 
cerns which are fostered by each national 
Scandinavian body. Very important among 
these is the Augustana Book Concern founded 
in 1889, which in 1912 published books, tracts 
and periodicals to the extent of over three mil- 
lion copies. The Danish Lutheran and Nor- 
wegian publishing houses established about the 
same date, also aid in popularizing the standing 
of their respective countrymen, and together 
with the Swedish serve to share in bringing out 
an important point, that is, that especially at 
the time of inauguration a close union existed 
between the secular press and the sponsers of 
religion. Some of the earliest papers were 
published co-operatively by pastors and laymen. 
The sphere of the church has been, in fact, 
as we may say in conclusion, the cultural cradle 
for the Scandinavians in America. In the con- 
fines of the church have been included the 
keenest intellects, the men of cultivated taste 



139 

and fine judgment. Not only was this true be- 
cause the church satisfied the desire to worship 
but because it was the unique circle of the 
talented, the common meeting place for men 
whose minds were nimble and whose sym- 
pathies extended beyond the satisfaction of 
their own immediate bodily needs. The church 
represented what cultivated club life does to 
men in certain social sets, it liberated thought, 
and influenced the policies of whole settlements. 
That it still continues to do so to such an ex- 
tent as it did a generation or so ago is perhaps 
not to be expected as its members, becoming 
more and more exposed to the impact of count- 
less other inspirational courses, cannot of neces- 
sity, feel themselves so securely bound to the do- 
minion of the church. That, however, the 
church in rendering its great service, has and is 
still contributing splendidly to social America 
is proved in many ways : it has held together 
a people who came as strangers to a foreign 
land; it has served as a link to the old country, 
although less and less as the years have passed ; 
it has promoted education ; it has broadened and 
fraternalized the relations of Scandinavians 
with other nations through their church bodies; 
it has given a social center to many and many 
an isolated, little country town ; and, finally, it 
has produced thinking men and women, who in 
their turn, have gone into other walks of life 
and created artistically. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Scandinavian- American Artistic Achievements. 

Finally, if personality is the culminative ex- 
pression of life, the Scandinavian-American 
social force is to be tested in the light of its 
contribution to personality. Of what signif- 
icance are limitless vistas of racial origin, ex- 
uberant eulogies of national greatness or care- 
ful analysis of political history, if, when all is 
said and done, there are no products, no living 
exponent of past deeds and old ideas to which 
to point as true representatives of national 
greatness? Politically, economically, poetically 
or artistically, personality may present itself, 
and the significance of politics and economics, 
the atmosphere of poetry and art defines a na- 
tion's status, while the men of a nation with 
their emotions and their beliefs, are both the 
storehouses of the heritages of the past and the 
depositories of legacies for the future. Into a 
full conception of Scandinavian-American mind 
in the making must be fused elements of per- 
sonality, pictured American and Scandinavian 

140 



141 

traits which go to make up the figures of eco- 
nomics, politicians, devines, poets and painters 
— this is racial and national mixing articulate. 
According to Prof. Ross, activity is the 
foremost American trait. Activity which shows 
results, counts, and is well illustrated by the 
American habit of requiring facts to be 
sustained by figures and statistics. This 
trait of mind is generally aptly represented by 
the business man, but furthermore, to be quite 
typically American it must be represented by 
the middle westerner, which fact brings out the 
conclusion that American characterization is es- 
sentially a sectional characterization. Broadly, 
the east dififers from the other sections in being 
financially dominant, swayed by European crit- 
icism, sensitive, intelligent, cultured and ex- 
clusive. It holds a vast mixture, however, the 
lowest and the highest examples of American 
citizenship ; it is the first haven for the immi- 
grant, its metropolitan centers often become the 
ultimate home of the successful citizen of other 
sections of the country. Its exclusive circles, 
restricted by ideas of caste, old family and tra- 
ditions, are as conservative as many circles of 
the old world. Found in the south and in the 
west as well, the people of these exclusive cir- 
cles no more represent the average Amrican 
than the most recently arrived citizen from 
other shores. Set ofif and diflferentiated from 
the east, the west is wholesome, naive and 



142 

sportsmanlike. Confident, youthfully assured, 
to the westerner all things American are espe- 
cially worthy. Differing from the east as the 
east differs from Europe, this type of man far 
better represents the average American than the 
high-low type of the east, or the landed type of 
the south. 

To this western, or middle or northwestern 
type, the Scandinavian is particularly allied. In 
pioneering characteristics the Northmen showed 
themselves akin to American pioneers, as has 
been seen, and with them turned settlers and 
developed the agricultural possibilities of the 
country. From such economic contribution to 
national welfare the Scandinavian advanced to 
the political stage. The life of the immigrant 
is universally known to be a lonely life. In a 
strange land speaking a strange tongue, the im- 
migrant is at a tremendous disadvantage for 
personal happiness. This he looks forward to 
in his sons, but disappointment may follow, for 
the second generation undergoes change, be- 
comes like the adopted countrymen, and often 
repudiates a foreign origin. These phases of 
immigrant life are particularly marked if the 
people are of a totally alien stock. The Scan- 
dinavians we have found are similar to the 
Americans in many respects, therefore they are 
less cross-strained in America, and yet, having 
been strangers, they have felt the transition 
stage. That during the transitional stage many 



143 

cultural activities had to be neglected in the in- 
terests of home building and self establishment 
was naturally to be expected. Today, however, 
a greater emphasis is beginning to be placed 
upon cultural activities ; the growth of artistic 
and exclusive circles in the east and west evi- 
dences this. The American-Scandinavian So- 
ciety has done much to bring up the level of 
cultural life, to give recognition to cultural ac- 
tivities, as well as to strengthen the bond of 
these activities with the parent countries. To- 
day social figures in American life reflect much 
of the old world courtesy of Sweden, Denmark 
and Norway. Exclusive metropolitan clubs 
count in their membership the names of mili- 
tary or otherwise distinguished foreigners of 
northern birth, while artistic circles in New 
York and Chicago register the names of North- 
erners. 

Regarding the American joy of living, the 
Scandinavians can contribute much of the Euro- 
pean habit of pleasurable relaxation, for the 
American joy of living is so restrained, so 
tinged with the ennui of slackened, work-ridden 
nerves, that it is a national lack. Still aptitude 
for relaxation is not so marked among the 
northern as among the southern peoples. The 
Italians and the French are artists in the enjoy- 
ment of life. On the other hand, Norwegian 
gloominess of disposition in some instances em- 
phasize the Puritanical strain in the American 



144 

stock. Danes are more light hearted and their 
proverbial hospitality is easily recognized. As 
for the Swedes, their traditions of highly adapt- 
able social personages of genuine, Swedish, 
aristicratic circles lend color and charm to the 
contribution which they make to American life. 
It is in business, however, that the Scandi- 
navian must compare favorably with the Amer- 
ican if he is to qualify in his personal relation- 
ship to America. American problems are busi- 
ness problems and they must be solved by com- 
petent minds. Unchecked by the influence of a 
landed aristocracy, America has given full reign 
to her business ideals and these each immigrat- 
ing nation has had to face in its own way. The 
Scandinavian mode of approach has for the 
most part been from the agricultural point of 
view. The Swedish, Danish or Norwegian busi- 
ness man, less nervous, wiry and energetic than 
the most pronounced type of American business 
man, has nevertheless, shown competent busi- 
ness ability. Qualities of perservance, even- 
ness of production, harmony of endeavor and a 
sustained belief in the future of the country 
personify the Scandinavians in business. In a 
land where one form of activity follows upon 
another in rapid succession, the man with think- 
ing capacity that uses experience in one form 
of occupation to improve another form of occu- 
pation is the man who belongs to a people 
wholly assimilated. It is this quick reaction to 



145 

stimulate which marks the state of assimilation. 

Finally, in spite of America's great regard 
for fact, for statistical presentation, for applied 
as against pure science, the American person- 
ality is and always has been energized by the 
force of ideas in themselves. It was the idea 
of freedom, democracy and personal integrity 
which founded the country. It is the idea that 
resources are given, that all the rest remains for 
man to do, which exacts the high output of 
American men of today. To try social experi- 
ments, to prove liberty and democracy, to create 
something in this chaos of making is the striv- 
ing for the ideal of individual Americans. If in 
the light of older civilizations American citizens 
fail in their grasp of the inner meaning of the 
facts they accumulate, if American civilization 
seems material, industrial and swayed by com- 
mercialism it is partly due to a lack in the con- 
trolling American ideas themselves, but also due 
in part to the lack of the full contribution of the 
crystalized habits and thoughts, the refined men- 
tal processes of the foreign nationalities which 
feed the American population. 

Whether Norway, Denmark and Sweden 
lend their old world standards and whether they 
contribute the control of adult European 
thought to America, depends upon whether or 
not Danes, Norwegians and Swedes once re- 
moved from Europe and swept into the current 
of American life, still feel the impulse to formu- 



146 

late controlling standards. Furthermore, has 
there existed between the home countries . and 
the Danes, Norwegians and Swedes in Amrica, 
a bond of sympathy which guarantees the ex- 
pression of this impulse? We may say that un- 
til recently this question has been answered in 
the negative. A lack of harmony with its emi- 
grating citizens and an apathy of appreciation 
for the efforts of immigrants in America has 
characterized the attitude of the home countries 
until recently. Now conditions are changing 
and the second generation from which much 
more is expected, shows the change. The 
flower of art is born in the ripeness of social 
conditions and moderate physical welfare, it is 
not born among pioneers, hewers of trees and 
makers of huts. Richness of background, rich- 
ness of atmosphere, care, sympathy and appre- 
ciation are qualifications for its growth. 

Because art is not essentially national but the 
product of universal personality, it cannot be 
said that there is a distinctively Scandinavian 
any more than there is a distinctively American 
school of art. But certain characteristics in the 
painters themselves, certain traits which express 
themselves in choice of subject, color and mood 
of development, personal visions which bespeak 
nationality, are psychologic traces of racial 
heritages. One painter chooses the presentation 
of a great engineering feat on canvas, where 
breadth of conception and ability to handle the 



147 

setting of the giant forces of nature and man 
implies vigor. Such a product is an outcome 
of the Scandinavian love of immensity and vast- 
ness, just as open snow fields and bare black 
trees against a winter's sky or ships on a toss- 
ing, gale-swept sea, likewise reflect northern 
temperament. These things belong to the im- 
aginative realm of racial life. 

Scandinavianism in art is not easily defin- 
able. Its elusive spirit is best expressed per- 
haps by mythic imaginativeness. Northern 
imaginative life reflects old Norse myth and 
history, and recreates this atmosphere in the 
everyday life of the people. Thus art in Scandi- 
navia is a heritage of race. It is also the pro- 
duct of the rich interactionary life of the people 
and the life of the ground. But in coming to 
America much of its precious heritage is lost. 
A good part of Scandinavia's individuality is 
due to insularity and national compactness. 
Scattered abroad the artists' craft forgets its 
homeliness. And yet in America it is just this 
we depend upon, the fusion of races to inspire 
our national culture, it is here that we insist the 
foreigner shall not leave his dreams behind him 
on his native shore. Furthermore, because 
Scandinavian art is young its zeal is needed in 
American life, its fresh impulse should count in 
the American mixture, for with their keen reali- 
zation of everyday ideals and their strong smack 
of the soil, Scandinavians may bring home to 



148 

Americans a very real sense of the common- 
round of beauty which art serves in everyday 
life. Men and women like Abrahamson, As- 
bj^rnsen, Bi^rn, Fromen, Jansson, Mathiesen, 
Nyhelm and SjzJrensen of Chicago, as well as 
Carlsen, Franzen, Gelert, Johansen, de Lager- 
crantz, Lie, Petersen and Reuterdahl of the 
New York group, represent artists who not only 
rank as Americans of attainments but who also 
figure as contributors, in many varying grades, 
to Scandinavian-American art. Not confined to 
one or two cities but scattered over all the 
United States, these Scandinavians are found 
— Branner, Carsund, Evers, Haag, Halberg, 
Holm, Laub, Matzen, Nordell, Palmer, Roos, 
Siboni, von Hofsten and Weller. While the 
dynamic quality of Gutzon Borglum as well as 
the great feeling for classic nationalism shown 
by Rohl-Smith in sculpture are notable features 
of Scandinavianism in American art, it is in the 
characteristics displayed by all these artists that 
America finds Swedish-, Danish-, and Nor- 
wegian-American artistic expression of life. 

Music, the form of art which most poignantly 
expresses the soul of a people, reflecting a state 
of longing, of psychic reaction against burden- 
some misunderstanding, or a sense of the in- 
vincible might of life, is the test par excellence 
of a people's spiritual condition. Scandinavia's 
note has been little heard in America, Scandi- 
navian compositions have been seldom rendered, 



149 

Scandinavian artists have rarely come to 
America, and up until recently no distinctively 
prominent ability has been found among the 
Scandinavians. The music of the north has to 
win its way in America, and only those artists 
born with the national feelings of Grieg, Gade, 
Hartmann or Sinding can rightly interpret the 
mystery and the sad, melancholy and passionate 
romance of the north. That there is an awaken- 
ing of intellectual curiosity on the part of 
Americans for the study of Scandinavian music 
and an appreciation of Scandinavian songs is 
undoubted. Still there is actually very little in- 
ducement for Europeans to come to America to 
work out a musical career. Many of the artists 
of foreign blood in American cities are tinged 
with pessimism and they revolt against what is 
described as the oppressively unappreciative 
American public. Scandinavian music has suf- 
fered because of this artificiality of popular 
taste, it also suffers from a lack of a number of 
distinctive musicians. 

Choral singing is the unique characteristic of 
Scandinavian talent. Singing societies, as has 
been mentioned, spring up wherever Scandi- 
navians congregate, and when led by good direc- 
tors they are a vitalizing force in Scandinavian 
musical life. Good directorship is indeed one 
of the contributions which Scandinavia can give 
America in an all-around, well sustained tone of 
musicianship, and Melius Christiansen, Ole 



150 

Windingstad, Arvid Akerlind, Carlo Sperati and 
Asger Hammerich among others are excellent 
representatives of this responsible spirit of 
leadership. 

More significant perhaps as world contrib- 
utors are the solists, instrumentalists and the 
composers. Among singers the name of Frem- 
stad stands out conspicously ; Claussen takes 
high rank; Hammer and Holmquist are solists 
who sing with the accompanying choral work 
of their own countrymen, and Reinald Werren- 
rath is noted for the excellence of his baritone 
voice. Instrumentalists are represented by 
Hegner, Munson, Zedeler, Ruebner, Klingen- 
berg and ToUefsen; while pianists, particularly, 
are called to mind by the names of Emmanuel 
Wad, E. Bystrom, Caleberg and Inga Hoegsbro. 
Creative ability is expressed as a rule in sym- 
phonies, operas and songs; in this way Busch, 
Christiansen, Hegner, Jebe, Ruebner and Win- 
dingstad are helping preserve for America the 
sincerity, the idealism and the rich fantasy of 
the north. 

Scandinavian-American literati have been 
divided into two very distinct classes, as we 
have seen, those who write for the national 
Swedish, Norwegian and Danish publics, and 
those who write for the American public. The 
number of nationalists is naturally greater while 
the attainments of the "Anglicized" are more 
distinctive. The latter have taken the greater 



151 

risks, those larger limits for fame or failure 
which make the success of artists by adoption 
so much more glorious. Among those who have 
stood or stand in that enviable circle of adopted 
writers Boyesen, Bj^rkman and Riis are promi- 
nent examples of a trio of which Bj^rkman is 
now the only living representative. Called the 
Mathew Arnold of Scandinavian-American 
literature, Bj^rkman has shown refinement of 
conception, rythmic expressiveness and clarity 
of criticism, qualities which have only been off- 
set by the tempered fineness of Boyesen, and 
the picturesqueness, the humaneness, and the 
breadth of sociality of Jacob Riis. Further, 
northern mysticism is significantly presented in 
the philosophical writings of C. H. A. Bjerre- 
gaard, aethestic taste and insight are shown by 
Mrs. Swanston Howard in her translations, 
and by Laurvik in his art criticisms. Folk tales 
and short stories come from the pens of Chris- 
tian Bay and Methea Mathiasen, while enter- 
taining style is expected of the slighter writings 
of the magazine group, Dahlerup, Larsen and 
Reuterdahl. Lecturers and interpretative 
readers also serve in their way to keep alive the 
flame of Scandinavian literature in America, 
while the scholars, rather scholar-writers, widen 
the literary circle even more considerably. 

It is indeed the Scandinavian scholars or 
educators who have made the weightiest cultural 
contribution to American life. Preeminently 



152 

in the northwest, led by pioneer educators such 
as Peter Laurentius Larsen, Sandinavian col- 
leges have taken great place in the cultural life 
of Scandinavians in America. Not only in 
point of number of colleges, as we have seen — 
Augustana, Gustavus Adolphus, Concordia, Lu- 
ther, Grand View, St. Olaf, Minnesota and Up- 
sala — but in their services to scholarship in 
preserving northern culture for the enrichment 
of American life, these institutions have quali- 
fied as distinct cultural factors. Associated with 
these colleges or with other quite American col- 
leges and universities, scholars such as Ernst 
F. Pihlblad, Lawrence M. Larson, George T. 
Flom, Rasmus B. Anderson, Amandus Johnson, 
E. W. Olsen, O. A. Petersen, A. L. Elmquist, 
Julius Emil Olsen, J. Alexis, David Nyvall, the 
Granvilles and Gustav Andreen have stood out 
conspiciously. In fact, the educators, together 
with lawyers and clergymen, have always oc- 
cupied a prominent place among Scandinavian 
honored professions, and law, scholarship and 
religion can be said to be the sinews of national 
life among Scandinavian-Americans : it is this 
which marks their national integrity, their 
realized idealism, and their personal allegiance 
to ideas of duty, faith, and God 



CHAPTER IX. 

Probable Influence on the Making of the Future 

''American Race" through Immigrants in 

General and through Scandinavians 

in Particular. 

It has been argued at some length in former 
chapters that the American nation is yet in its 
making. The formative process is in progress 
and not completed. A great variety of indi- 
viduals comprising our nation, from the Ameri- 
can Indian to the lowest of the immigrants, 
claim a right to protection under the "Stars and 
Stripes". True, many of the immigrants may 
continue to show honor to the flag of their 
native land but America guarantees its foster 
sons and daughters ''life, liberty, and pursuit of 
happiness". What the foster children have 
given in return for this guarantee is not easily 
ascertained from the cultural standpoint. Con- 
sidered from the agricultural and political sides, 
more definite figures are obtainable, showing 
achievements in these lines. 

153 



154 

A history analyzing the American culture has 
not yet been written, hence the contribution of 
our various nationalities is not distinctly seen. 
America has been obliged to work out its own 
salvation, as it has been forced to contend with 
the assimilation of the undesirables from for- 
eign countries. "The dumping ground" as the 
United States is often considered, has until re- 
cently made only a limited selection. It has 
been accepting the good and the bad, and en- 
deavoring to make the best out of these indi- 
viduals, and fit them into American conditions. 
But if we are to accept the perverted and the 
criminals as representatives of the culture of 
their countries, we fail to obtain the true kind 
of culture found in the people represented by 
these classes. It may appear fi-om these state- 
ments that the immigrants belong exclusively to 
the undesirable classes, a fact which could not 
be sustained. However, it is true that a large 
percentage of the immigrants belong to the less 
favored classes, especially was this true until 
within recent years when immigration laws have 
become more rigid, to the extent of excluding 
many arrivals which formerly were accepted. 
This means a change in the constitution of our 
immigrant population. If we consider that 
hitherto we have received the "unfittest", we 
may state that we are now by selection admit- 
ting the "fittest". That this must have an effect 
upon the American nation cannot be denied. 



155 

The raising of the standard brings a better class 
of immigrants to our shores from their respec- 
tive foreign countries. People now emigrate 
not to escape punishment but because they seek 
something better, and this changing of the point 
of view will bring better results to the adopted 
land. If we were to compare the immigrant 
classes of to-day with those of ten years or 
more ago, on a basis of nationalities, we should 
be compelled to state that the nations emigrat- 
ing to our shores at present represent a lower 
class. In the argument, however, just discussed 
the classification was based on higher or lower 
types of individuals belonging to the same na- 
tion. The fact is then that we receive better 
immigrants from all nations to-day than for- 
merly, also that we receive more immigrants 
from countries of southern Europe, universally 
accepted as inferior to those of northern Europe. 
The effect of ,this change — the selection of 
the fittest but generally of the lower type is 
hard to forecast. It is a new paragraph of 
new conditions to be written in American 
history; as yet it is unwritten. The number of 
immigrants has on the whole been increasing, 
although the last two years show a slight de- 
crease. In endeavoring to establish the influ- 
ence of present immigration, the chapter and 
the number of immigrants must be considered. 
Another factor connected with the influence of 
immigration is the present status of conditions 



156 

in America. If America is more receptive than 
formerly, a greater impress will be made by the 
foreign factor. On the other hand, if it is more 
staple, it will be less susceptible. Granting that 
the latter is the condition, we may draw the 
conclusion that the assimilating power of our 
country to-day is greater than formerly, and 
the influence of the immigrant less noticeable. 
We must not infer that the immigrant and 
American conditions, however, are such that the 
influence is eliminated. Every human being is 
a factor and must be counted in the make-up of 
society. As he mingles with fellow-men he be- 
comes a social force. This being true, if we 
have at heart the welfare of future society in 
our country, we should continue the selective 
process with respect to our immigrants. The 
greater the number, the greater the force, hence 
we should especially reduce the number of the 
undesirables. Believing that all countries have 
some good to be imparted and inculcated into 
American society, we eliminate the unfit and 
select the fittest by raising the standard for ad- 
mission. 

In the mass of immigrants coming to our 
country subject to the conditions just mentioned, 
we have the Scandinavians. That their influ- 
ence on the cultural life of America can be large, 
is not to be expected for various reasons, the 
first being the general reason stated above 
namely, that American conditions are more 



157 

firmly established ; the second reason is that 
Scandinavians become Americanized too rapidly 
and hence cease to be an independent social 
force too soon ; the third reason is that we re- 
ceive numerically a far less number per year 
from Scandinavian countries than formerly. 
The reason for this being that conditions in 
Scandinavian countries have improved and offer 
more opportunities to the people there, while 
the conditions in America have become less 
favorable to the immigrant, hence little is gained 
by the Scandinavians who come to our country. 
Yet in spite of the fact that Scandinavians 
become Americanized too rapidly and in so do- 
ing loose the power to exert themselves as an 
independent, social force, it is nevertheless true, 
as we have seen, that they have desseminated 
a certain amount of influence upon American 
activity, thought and feeling. Just how great 
an amount it is naturally difficult to determine, 
but in rapidly reviewing the decades since the 
early colonial epoch, it is found that the period 
of the 70's and 80's stood out as the most con- 
spicously noted for individuality of influence. 
The import of the entire pioneering era was the 
great awakening which in Europe and America 
was stirring men's minds to wider horizons. 
Norway and Denmark were in the grip of re- 
naissance ; the old stagnant conceptions, forms 
and ideas in literature and religion were being 
overthrown. The apostles of anti-officialism 



158 

challenged bourgeois arrogance and set to work 
to exalt the common man, the husmaend. We 
have seen how in Europe dissatisfaction with 
the office holding class resulted in bringing im- 
migrants to the United States, and it was this 
very, self-determined right of a man to think 
things out for himself, typified in literature by 
Georges Brandes and in philosophy by Kierke- 
gaard, which gave birth to the new democracy 
which was to find its fitting setting in the 
pioneer conditions of America. New settle- 
ments, presupposing society in a formulative 
stage and offering wider scope for religious 
doctrines or enthusiasm, were opened up to the 
immigrants. That such opportunity in religion 
was not, however, required or embraced by the 
great majority of the Norwegians and Swedes 
is well attested by the continued loyalty to the 
nationally established church, which they dis- 
played. Among the Danes in America, however, 
as well as in Denmark, Gruntvigian principles 
gained in favor. This Gruntvigian movement, 
characterized as a poetical and spiritual enthusi- 
asm which had sprung up in Denmark to 
counteract the sentimental melancholism of the 
Danish Inner Mission sect, appealed in its es- 
sence to the westward travelling Danes. Flex- 
ible as were conditions in the New World, they 
sometimes admitted of too great extremes. 
Freedom of action and thinking typefied by the 
great thinkers in Scandinavia, by Bj^rnson, who 



159 

allied himself with the opponents of political 
and social wrongs, and by Ibsen who pointed 
out moral excrescences, went, at times, to the 
extreme in America, where Mormonism exerted 
a slight influence upon the earlier settlers, and 
communism and raw socialism overemphasized 
the limits to which the spirit of freedom may 
lead. On the whole, however, Scandinavians, 
always well balanced and finding in politics 
enough scope for individuality, and religion 
formulative to suit their ideas of independence, 
gradually settled into certain well-marked 
grooves, the course of which we have attempted 
to delineate. The husmsend, discovered, set off 
and differentiated in literature, was thus brought 
to his own ; he began to experience in America 
an unhampered development, and his realism of 
mind and independence of character became 
dedicated to the upbuilding forces at work in 
the country — to establishing homes, to develop- 
ing agriculture and to moulding scholarship. 

Swedenborgian traits in Scandinavian think- 
ing found their way into American philosophy, 
for the Swedenborgians reaching out for the 
ideal, touched upon new idealistic currents in 
American life. Swedenborgianism prevailed in 
New England, where its transcendentalism 
merged to an extent into the transcendentalism 
of Emersonian thinking, — Emerson, who, says 
C. H. A. Bjerregaard, "was the father of the 
American mind by way of New England" . . . 



160 

"New England thinking was not abstract tran- 
scendentalism, it was rather professing the im- 
mance of the Divine and looking for effects 
rather than causes, and, it is this characteristic 
that moulded Emersonian eloquence and gave 
American philosophy its national character." 
Emerson together with Whitman, that great 
American poet called "the poet of democracy'' 
or "the banner bearer in life, a born leader for 
those who still draw from the original sources," 
exerted their influence upon the countrymen of 
Bjjz^rnson, Ibsen, George Brandes and Strind- 
berg. Further Hawthorne's psychology appealed 
to a people drawn to the psychology of Tur- 
geniev, Tolstoy, and Dostoievsky, while with 
Poe and his appeal to the French critics, Beaude- 
laire, St. Beuve and Tarde, is traced the later 
period, marked to some extent by the loss of 
the earlier buoyancy of thought and revolu- 
tionary enthusiasm. Scandinavians in America 
finding that their work of laying political 
foundation, establishing the fundamentals of 
church, school and industrial institutions had 
gained a momentum, turned their attention to 
the cultivation of science and scholarship. Many 
immigrants who had passed through scathing 
experiences as newcomers were at this time 
gaining a footing, and they began to find more 
congenial occupations than those which had at 
first taken their attention. Modes of thought 
gradually evolved modernism, with the writers. 



161 

Ibsen, Anatole France, Maupaussant, and 
Maeterlinck typifying the newer age : taste came 
to embrace a refined intelligence, a sensitive re- 
gard for beauty and universal fraternity. And 
in the role of contributors to the present modes 
of thought and activity in all directions, not 
only do we find celebrated names in Sweden, 
Norway and Denmark, such as Nansen, the ex- 
plorer, Montelius, the scholar, Hjz^ffding, the 
philosopher, Troels Lund, the historian, Sjo- 
gren, the musician, Ellen Key, the writer, and 
Julius Lange, the critic, but also in America 
men of distinguished merit, as we have seen. 
Not only have the Scandinavians aimed to 
build securely in America, to establish land 
marks in their path which shall not easily be 
destroyed, they have gone further than that, for 
besides turning wild prairies into veritable gar- 
dens, they have not neglected the science of the 
soil and the hygiene of well being. The work 
of Hansen in connection with the Agricultural 
Experiment Stations, and of other scientists in 
experimenting upon plant life, yeast cultures, 
etc., is of paramount importance to agricultural 
America : while the services to science in con- 
nection with medicine add glory to Scandinavian 
achievement in America. The names of Henry 
Jacques Garriques, gynecologist. Christian Fen- 
ger, who is no longer living, A. J. Ochsner, the 
distinguished Chicago physician. Doctors Bjz(ck- 
man and Hoegh suggest many another well 



162 

esteemed individual who independently or in 
connection with the many excellent Scandi- 
navian hospitals exert their beneficial influence 
upon the American public. 

Monuments raised in honor of noted men 
show evidence that the distinguished ability of 
their countrymen is not forgotten by the Scandi- 
navians in America. In Fargo, N. D., there is 
a statue of Rollo, the Viking, the founder of 
Normandy, of Norman prowess and chilvary — 
"Rollo, the legislator of his nation; the father 
of his people and the proud progenitor of war- 
riors and statesmen." Also in Fargo, we have a 
statue of Henrik Wergeland, while in Moorhead, 
Minn., a "Bauta" stone has been raised to the 
sacred memory of Hans Nielsen Hauge. In 
New York City the statue of Thorwaldsen, in 
Chicago that of Hans Christian Andersen, and 
in Minneapolis, Minn., that of Ole Bull, ail 
testify Northern loyalty to the great departed. 
Also on the grounds of the University of North 
Dakota, is found a "Bauta" stone to Bj0rn- 
stjerne Bj^rnson which proclaims the fervor of 
Norse patriotism to the thousand students who 
annually gather at this place. Several more 
might be mentioned, the above, however, serve 
to show that the ideals of their great men are 
not left behind by the westward moving Scandi- 
navians, but are brought to America with them. 
The building of statues and monuments 
preaches a lesson which is a plea for a follow- 



163 

ing of similar causes in a strange land. How 
powerful the message of these silent figures may 
be, cannot be stated, but surely they make a 
fitting Scandinavian impress upon the receptive 
youth of America. 

"They come not to destroy our institutions," 
says Prof. Babcock of the Scandinavians, "but 
to build them up by adopting them. They come 
from countries not potent or glorious in Euro- 
pean affairs, and therefore the more readily 
denationalize themselves, that they may become 
entirely American. The most of them are plain, 
common people, strong, sturdy, and independent, 
required to unlearn little, ready and able to 
learn much and learn it well. They have the 
same still powers of adaptability and assimila- 
tion that made Rollo and his Northmen such 
good Frenchmen, and Guthrun and his Danes 
such excellent Englishmen ; and using these 
powers among us to-day, they are, or are 
rapidly becoming, irreproachably and unim- 
peachably American." It is evident and gratify- 
ing to the Scandinavians that they are begin- 
ning to contribute more to American culture. 
They have not forgotten the fact that they have 
a great history and have made, and are making, 
splendid contributions to the art, literature and 
science of government of continental Europe 
and thus indirectly of America. Such names as 
Ibsen, Bj^rnson, Rydberg, Strindberg, Gryndt- 
berg and Brandes suggest that the Scandinavian 



164 

people are capable of raising up men of gigantic 
intellectual proportions; it goes without saying 
that such men have not yet been produced by 
their countrymen who have emigrated to Ameri- 
can shores, nor have such illustrative figures 
been found in person as a social force in the 
large Scandinavian settlements of the northwest. 
Recapitulating, we may say again that the 
people of northern Europe, generally considered 
the purest stock of the Teutonic race, have great 
similarities with all other Teutons. Even 
though we may speak of special characteristics 
of the different Teutonic peoples, which are 
truly found in a broad sense, the characterizing 
marks of the nations composing the Teutonic 
race are very much alike, so that at the present 
stage of amalgamation in American society, we 
might easily speak of Teutonic characteristics 
and Teutonic influence, including in this class, 
the Germans, Scandinavians, English and 
Scotch. Professor Julius Olsen of the State 
University of Wisconsin, in an address de- 
livered on the occasion of the unveiling of a 
statue to Rollo of Normandy, at Fargo, N. D., 
said in this connection: "In the first place, then, 
Northern Europe is the home of the Teuton. 
As a physical product he has sprung from the 
soil, so to speak. Northern and Central Europe 
was his by right of primitive possession. It 
was his playground and battlefield that he had 
a right to control." Until the last decade, the 



165 

portion of Europe mentioned by Prof. Olsen 
furnished by far the greatest number of our 
immigrants. The people of southern Europe 
in whatever relation they may formerly have 
been to the Teutonic race, have lived apart from 
them long enough to form a distinct race type. 
Of recent years this racial type enters our land 
in large numbers, and consequently v^ill play its 
part as a social factor, but as the Scandinavians 
belong to the former type mentioned, the Teu- 
tonic, Teutonic characteristics alone are con- 
sidered in our discussion. In the same address 
Prof. Olsen describes the achievements of the 
Teutons : "Their vital energy and power of 
physical expansion, has been startlingly tre- 
mendous, for century after century, tribe after 
tribe swarmed over all Europe, lending to every 
nation with which they came into contact, 
northern blood and northern spirit. They have 
colonized America, Australia, South Africa and 
many islands of the seas, and ruled vast terri- 
tories in Asia. They have been driven forward 
by an irresistible impulse that brooks no oppo- 
sition, counts no obstacle. The two poles mark 
the compass of their conquest. Peary and 
Amundsen, one an American, the other a Norse- 
man, are the advance guard to-day with no more 
poles to conquer." 

What then is the Teutonic spirit? It is a 
physical and intellectual and moral quality. 
Aristotle says: "'Some men are by nature free, 



166 

and others slaves." By this he means that some 
men have the capacity for freedom, while others 
lack it. The capacity for freedom may be con- 
sidered one of the characteristics of the Teutons. 
Freedom in this sense presupposes physical, in- 
tellectual and spiritual power. It means free 
action, with the sense of responsibility to the 
governing power. From society's point of view, 
this governing power is the state, and it may be 
noted in this connection that two states founded 
by the Teutons, Germany and England, have 
proved to be the most enduring in the world, for 
the very reason of this characteristic. 

Another trait of these people is the Teutonic 

quality of loyalty. This loyalty rests on the 

foundation of "free self-determination". The 

last sentiment is aptly expressed by Shakespeare 

.in Hamlet, the great Teutonic tragedy, he said: 

"To thy own self be true. 
And it must follow as the night, the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

Further, Goethe expressing the thought said: 
"It was the Teutonic races who first introduced 
into the world the idea of personal independ- 
ence." It has been the continued combat of the 
Teutons to exemplify this independence to the 
world. When with Ripley we locate the purest 
Teutons of to-day in Scandinavia, we can 
clearly see why this spirit is so vibrant in the 



167 

bosom of every Norwegian, Swede and Dane. 
Further, when we find in this Teutonic spirit 
the varying traits of the Northmen: the cosmo- 
politanism, the broadness of view, the demo- 
cracy, the light heartedness and the quaint im- 
aginativeness of the Dane; the aristocratic con- 
servatism, the feeling for color, the gift for il- 
lustrative representation of artistic ideas of the 
Swede; together with the regard for truth and 
verity, the moral integrity and the fanciful 
mysticism of the Norwegian, when we find these 
traits blended into a Scandinavian temperament, 
vital, imaginative, chivalrous, independent and 
adventurous, we can surely hope that American- 
ism economically, socially and spiritually, should 
reflect the indelible stamp of this true Teutonic 
spirit. 



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